A Normal Madness?
by Zettel
Summary: AU Novella. Post-Budapest, Sarah Walker quits the CIA. She moves to LA to start again. A chance encounter leads to her becoming Chuck Bartowski's dating coach. Will she allow herself to fall for the man she is coaching to win another woman?
1. Twine

AU Novella. Post-Budapest, Sarah Walker quits the CIA. She moves to LA to start again. A chance encounter leads to her becoming Chuck Bartowski's dating coach. Will she allow herself to fall for the man she is coaching to win another woman?

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A/N: New story. Short. Fluff-ish. Characters have somewhat changed histories.

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**A Normal Madness?**

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Chapter One: Twine

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"Up north, there's a place for you/Start your still-life up again..."

— Richard Buckner, _Up North_

* * *

Sarah Walker, Special Agent for the CIA, handed Langston Graham, CIA Director, her resignation letter.

She stood waiting after he took it.

He looked at it, stared at her in question, but as he started to speak, she turned abruptly and marched from his office, the set of her shoulders her silent and only reply to his as-yet-unasked question. She had nothing more to say to him — and nothing more to give to the Company. She was empty where both were concerned; her needle had pegged 'E': empty.

Hungary.

Her final mission — the one that forced her to resign — was a mission to Budapest.

Budapest, Hungary.

She had ended that mission with a gun barrel smoking at the end of one arm and with an orphaned baby girl crying in the crook of the other.

The baby was now, after a sleepless whirlwind of travel and fake documents, safely hidden with Sarah's mother near Las Vegas, Nevada. No one else knew the whereabouts of the little girl, and due to Sarah's peculiar history, no one, including the CIA, knew that Sarah's mother was her mother, or could track the baby by backtracking through Sarah's CIA file.

Sarah drove from Nevada to California and flew from there back to DC. DC: where she lived, but not home. She had no home.

On the ground, she went to her bare apartment and sat down at her dusty desk. She blew the dust off her laptop, turned it on and then composed her terse resignation letter. She had no plan for what she would do once she was no longer a spy; she would figure it out. But the baby had convinced her that she was no longer willing to be a spy, no longer willing to take orders, no longer willing to twist and distort herself so as to live — if that was the right word? — with what she did, with what she had done.

She walked out of Langley no longer Special Agent Sarah Walker — just as Sarah Walker.

It felt exhilarating and terrifying, a plunge off a towering bridge, unsure of the bungee-cord.

She drove back to her apartment and packed it up in summary fashion. It took her all of fifteen minutes. The furniture was rented. She had acquired nothing in the ten years she had lived there, except a few houseplants, all dead except for the lonely, thorny cactus in the corner, unkillable, or so it seemed.

She had spent a host of nighttime hours staring at that cactus, considering how much like her it seemed. Tall, dangerous...unembraceable.

She surrendered the cactus to a neighbor, an older woman who had been one of the few in the building to try to get past Sarah's withdrawn, icy reserve. They had not spoken to each other often or spoken much when they had spoken, but she often smiled at Sarah, and that smile was the closest thing to belonging the apartment offered her, the only evidence that it was home.

But it was not. It was not home. She had no home. Never really had. She wanted one, despite wanting not to want one.

Budapest convinced her she had to quit.

Graham was slowly, in a deliberate, stepwise fashion, turning her into his errand girl, and the errands were getting bloodier and bloodier, the missions darker and darker.

She had recently carried out termination missions for him. A few. Not many, but the few weighed on her as if they were infinitely many.

The terminations.

Her whole spy life, her whole sinkhole career, weighed on her, ponderous and greasy: terminations, terminations and pretenses: the covers, the lies, the manipulations, the seductions.

The seductions.

To promise yourself to evil men, even when you had no intention of keeping the promise, was awful. It eroded your sense of yourself as a woman with romantic potential, as someone a good man, the right man, might want. To flirt, be flirted with, groped and pawed, acting as if it was a prelude to still more intimate gropings and pawings, it ate away at her sense that love or romance could be real, meaningful, or that she could really be the object of real love. It made her think that _the right man_ was itself a delusive fiction.

That degrading, demoralizing seduction class at the Farm soured her on so much, turning what might have been, what should have been an affair of intuition and mystery into a vulgar, manipulatory paint-by-numbers exercise. 'Seduction', as the CIA taught her the term, did not mean having sex, but it meant learning to use the hint or hope or outright expectation of sex as a tool of control. It was a class in lying sexual promises, and it resulted in destroying any promise in sex, making all sex seem a lie.

She had been taught the 'tells' of sexual interest, compelled to mastery of a flirting seemingly intended to culminate in purely physical encounters. Lessons had been given on eye contact, listening posture, gestures, casual touches, bodily stance, intonations, keywords, phrases. Sarah had been shown how to walk, stand, touch her hair, make subtle contact with her mark. Her instructor had taken them through hours of discussion about clothes and their use to interest or persuade or fascinate, colors, cuts, the display or non-display of legs, toes, cleavage, and any other spot of bodily geography that might have erotic potential, that might allow her to exercise control.

The training had altered her own relationships with men. It was impossible to compartmentalize the training, and it leached out of the Farm classroom and into her soul.

Actually, the training had not _just _altered her relationships with men, it had ruined them, undid any possibility of heartfelt involvement and replaced it with head-driven cynicism.

She could never manage to see a date as other than a mark or to wonder if she was her date's mark.

She had entered the CIA at an early age, recruited by Graham, and had taken the seduction classes while she should have been a senior in high school. Her father's nomadic, conman life had made normal highschool dating nearly impossible. Even worse, she had been gangly and awkward, for endless years taller than the boys, and then, as they caught up, at last, she was imprisoned behind barbed-wire braces.

Never good at making friends, as she got older she got worse at it, her self-consciousness becoming more pronounced, more debilitating. She was introverted and quiet by nature, and her unsettled childhood made honest, forthright expression even harder for her than it would otherwise have been. She was always _the new girl_, the outsider, the stranger — the butt of jokes, the last team member chosen, the girl seatless at lunch.

But the CIA had freed her from her braces and taught her how to capitalize on her natural but undiscovered beauty. That would have been liberating and empowering, and perhaps to a degree, it had been, but the freedom and power were darkened by the seduction class, by her growing understanding of what they intended her to do with her new freedom and power.

Sarah put her suitcase and her few boxes in her Porsche, glad at that moment anyway, given the limited space, that she had next-to-nothing to call her own.

After shutting her car door — and after blowing out an apprehensive breath, she fired up the engine and pointed the car westward.

She decided just as she started the car to go to California and to try to create a life for herself there. It seemed as good a plan as any. She had a little money and a lot of time.

Her one real friend, Carina Miller, was currently stationed in Burbank, back from a long deep cover assignment, and Sarah was banking on Carina's willingness to let her couch surf for a few days until she found a place of her own.

Sarah could start thinking then about work, about a job, about some way to spend her time, about building a normal life.

ooOoo

Sarah took her time crossing the country, taking back roads and stopping here and there at overlooks, parks and local curiosities — like the World's Largest Ball of Twine in Cawker City, Kansas.

After a few days of winding roads, of half-hearted aimlessness, she crossed the state line into California.

She wound into Burbank later, following her GPS to Carina's address. She had sent Carina a text from the road, hoping to avoid conversation until they were face-to-face. Carina had been excited about the visit — as it happened, she was between DEA missions and was a bit at loose ends. Sarah mentally chuckled at the word 'loose' as she read Carina's text, since she knew that Carina went through men during downtimes like a kitchen-cleaning-chore kid went through paper towels.

As Sarah neared Carina's she began to brace herself. Carina was not going to take the news of Sarah's resignation with an equal temper. Although they saw each other irregularly after a brief period of working together some years before, Carina was invested in the idea of Sarah and herself as agents — albeit in different agencies — living out a life that combined glamour and threat of death. Carina thought of the spy life as the professionalized form of the adage: _Live fast, die young. _Carina was a celebrating, party-girl fatalist.

Sarah had never openly disagreed with Carina, but she did not share Carina's attitude, not even when they had worked on the edge together and squeezed in bouts of clubbing between mission assignments.

Carina never seemed to notice that Sarah only played along with Carina's games of _Lure and Capture_ — games with attractive men as prey. Carina wanted the men, but she mainly wanted to win, to best Sarah.

Sarah wanted...well, she was not sure what she had wanted. Not the men: she was so closed that even a purely physical encounter seemed too close, too revealing, too transgressive — a trespass. She wanted her friendship with Carina. She had grown up friendless, lonely, and the CIA had worsened that. The games pleased Carina, and since Carina won, she never noticed that Sarah did not seem much interested in the prizes, that Sarah played to please Carina, not herself.

Sarah supposed Carina knew that her existential bravura was not matched by Sarah. Being a CIA agent was what Sarah knew, all she knew, and she excelled at it, but she had no love for it or generally for the death-defying, adrenaline-filled, 'high' moments that thrilled Carina. Sarah was not immune to adrenaline but she was no junky.

ooOoo

Sarah parked her car and shut off the engine. Its throb as she crossed the country had been all the company she had for days, and she knew she was going to have to readjust to keep company with Carina. Carina's RPM's were constantly in the red, the whine of her engine nearly a scream, even when she was not working, not on a mission.

Sarah got out of the car, grabbing her purse and slinging it over her shoulder. She got her suitcase and stood it on its wheels. She took a deep breath and went inside Carina's apartment building.

She checked her phone, making sure of Carina's apartment number. 1301. The thirteenth floor. She got on the elevator, standing against the back and watching the numbers climb. At thirteen, she got off the elevator and walked down the hallway to Carina's. She knocked on the door. As she waited, she realized that she could hear jazz coming from inside.

The door opened and Carina stood before Sarah, wearing a sly grin on her face, a slinky blue dress, and blue heels. She had a filled martini glass in one hand. The jazz was louder. Carina stepped forward and scanned the hallway, seeing no one, her sly grin grew.

"As I live and breathe, if it isn't the world's second most deadly and second most beautiful secret agent, Sarah Walker. What brings you to the City of Angels, named, you know, in prophecy of my coming?"

Carina stepped aside and Sarah entered the apartment. She heard Carina close the door behind her.

"Glad to see you, Sarah. I'm planning to go out and was hoping you'd get here in time to go with me."

Sarah dreaded telling Carina her news. Maybe it would be best to do it on neutral ground. Out. She turned to Carina and nodded. "Good to see you too, Carina."

Carina put her glass down on the coffee table next to the couch. Sarah put down her suitcase and the two women smiled at each other and embraced.

Sarah let herself relax a little. Maybe sharing her news would not be so bad. Later.

Carina pulled back and gave Sarah a look. "Go shower. Find something daring in that little black suitcase. _The girls are back in town_!"

Sarah took a deep breath, silently. She smiled and picked up her suitcase, heading in the direction of Carina's pointing finger.

"What are you listening to?" Sarah stopped and asked just before she got to the bathroom door. She turned around to hear the answer.

"It's John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman. This song's _Lush Life._" Carina gave Sarah a pointed smirk.

Sarah shook her head, turned, and went into the ornate bathroom. She could hear Hartman's gorgeous, deep voice.

_Romance is mush stifling those who strive  
I'll live a lush life in some small dive  
And there I'll be while I rot with the rest  
Of those whose lives are lonely too_

She mulled over the words as she closed the door, peeled off her clothes, and turned on the shower.

The sound of the water obscured the music as Sarah stepped beneath it.

* * *

A/N2: Thoughts?

By the way, I've never seen the World's Largest Ball of Twine. A pity. Maybe it should be on my Bucket List.

I've been taking a break and am not sure I am really back. We'll see what fate befalls this chapter.


	2. The Come-What-May

A/N: More story. This chapter finishes the prelude.

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Two: The Come-What-May

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Sarah sat next to Carina in the small dive bar, _The Come-What-May_.

Surrounding them were about a dozen small round tables with chairs. Like theirs, the other tables were old and wobbly, the other chairs shaky on loosened legs. Off to the left was a long wooden bar, paislied with stains and flanked on one side by mismatched stools. A small stage occupied the end of the bar opposite the doors, and a jazz quartet was working through Charles Mingus' The Clown. No one was dancing to the curent tune, although some of the scattering of folks at other tables had been dancing earlier.

Sarah did not know the tune — she knew next to nothing about music — but the upright bass player had mentioned the title of the tune before they started. It was an ambitious tune and the band seemed on tip-toe trying to play it, far less relaxed than they had been playing the smooth jazz that had greeted Sarah and Carina when they entered.

Carina was tapping her index finger in time with the tune but she kept turning her head, checking the door. She had told Sarah she was planning to meet someone at a bar and then had whisked Sarah out of the apartment, shoved her into a cab, pulled her onto the sidewalk, and pushed her through the doors of the bar.

All in the friendliest way. Typical Carina, _take no prisoners, not even among friends_.

Sarah had no chance to tell Carina about her resignation, and even though they were on neutral ground, Carina's tense sentinel routine and the volume of the music made Sarah decide that she would wait for another moment.

Later.

Maybe she would wait until tomorrow.

Another place.

ooOoo

The doors swung open and a short, bearded man came into the bar, looking at his watch, looking around, and looking panicked. Carina straightened and waved at him and he saw her, his face splitting into a huge, relieved, incredulous smile. He started toward their table but then stopped, remembering something, and turned around to face the door.

A moment later a lanky man entered the bar. Sarah straightened in her chair.

The new arrival had unruly, curly hair, and beneath it an off-center but beautifully kind smile. He was putting his keys into his pocket. Sarah concluded that he had been parking the car. The short man pointed to Carina and Sarah, and Sarah saw the tall man glance at them both. But his eyes lingered on Sarah for a drumbeat or two — or three or four — and Sarah felt herself blush in response, a rare sensation.

She glanced down at her drink. The man realized she had caught him staring and shifted his gaze to the quartet.

"There he is," Carina said in a merry whisper, "_Martin_. I met him at a big-box electronics store. Not at all my normal type, I know, but he made me laugh, and I have been in deep cover for so long, I thought it might be a good idea to...start small. Work my way back into fighting trim, up to bigger things."

Sarah rolled her eyes and Carina giggled. _Is she talking about the tall man, is he her 'bigger things'? _It was just the thing Carina would do, start with one and before the night was done, end with the other. Carina had an evil genius for creating awkward situations — awkward for everyone but her. But Carina was immune to _awkward_, virtually shameless, and she liked to capitalize on her invulnerability by manufacturing situations in which she could watch those who were vulnerable wince and cringe.

The two men reached the table just as the quartet finished the song and announced that they would take a short break. The Clown seemed to have exhausted them.

Martin took the one empty chair and the lanky man grabbed one from another table, spun it around so he was facing its back, and joined them.

Carina gave Martin her stunning best smile. "I worried you would stand me up, Martin."

Martin's disbelieving smile weakened a bit. "Um...it's Morgan, actually, not Martin. _Morgan_."

Carina shook her head but Sarah could tell she was not paying attention to the correction. The tall man was looking back and forth from Morgan to Carina, and sneaking a glance now and then at Sarah. He seemed uncomfortable. Sarah was merciful.

She extended her hand across the table, inviting him to shake it. "Hi, I'm Sarah. You _are_...?"

He took her hand with a smile that acknowledged her mercy. "I'm Chuck — _Morgan's_ friend."

Chuck's smile caused Sarah a ripple of responsive pleasure, but she did not let herself dwell on it, tried to ignore it. She did not understand how to process it. But she smiled, the smile escaping just before her self-command froze her features. "I gathered," she said, trying to erase the smile without undoing her earlier mercy. "I'm Carina's friend."

Chuck nodded. Carina had scooted her chair nearer to Morgan and she started whispering something to him; he listened and whispered back. Sarah watched them for a moment, then realized that Chuck was watching her watch them.

She faced him. "So, I guess we entertain each other?"

Chuck laughed softly as he shrugged. "For the moment, I guess, but please...um...don't feel _obliged._ Morgan dragged me along; Carina told him she thought she would bring a friend; he thought...But I never imagined…" He looked at her and she saw him blush, aware of where the second sentence he began would end. He glanced away, at once interested in the stage and the return of the jazz quartet, watching as the men put fresh drinks down beside their chairs or stools, and took their earlier places.

"Are you a jazz fan, Sarah?" Chuck asked, returning his gaze to her. He seemed unwilling to look at her for long, and it dawned on Sarah that he was still fighting an impulse to stare at her. It was not an impulse her marks ever fought, and she again felt pleasure ripple through her, a response to Chuck's palpable if offbeat charm.

"No, not really. Not a _music_ fan. I like it, but I know nothing about it, can hardly name a band or a song — of any genre."

His gaze intensified, his eyes widened; he studied her for a second, forgetting to fight his stare. "You don't have a favorite band, a favorite song?" She searched his eyes for her own reflection, trying to see if she had grown a second head. But in the low light, all she could discern in his eyes was his shock.

Sarah's heart sank.

Sank.

Sank. —This was among the reasons she had never cared for Carina's games. Playing them meant that Sarah had to make conversation with normal men, and doing so often forced her into lies to camouflage her abnormality. The moment she started lying, as the first falsehood crossed her lips, she was no longer just Sarah Walker, woman, she was Agent Sarah Walker, CIA, and the man, despite being previously normal, was then her mark. The whole conversation shifted aspect, became an exercise in applied seduction theory. Farming.

The Farm.

Chuck did not seem like a mark, and Sarah...did not want him to seem like a mark, so she told him the truth, if not the whole truth. "I...my work...my work...did not leave me much time for music."

He nodded sympathetically but also in continued puzzlement. "But surely, back in high school...you must have listened to music, had a favorite band, favorite song? You know, songs at school dances, maybe one that played when you danced with someone...special?"

Sarah blushed so she feared to become a lighthouse in the half-dark bar. She shook her head slightly, slowly. "No, no...high school was...well, there no special moments, no special someone, nothing special at all for me in high school." The confession heightened her already-intense blush. She hoped the half-dark obscured the red of her reddened cheeks.

Chuck studied her again, his eyes widening still more. "_You_? _You_ had no special moments in high school? That is truly unbelievable. I mean…" Chuck looked around aimlessly, at the walls, the floor, finally back at Sarah, the look around manifesting his astonishment, "you _must _have been the belle of the ball in high school. I mean...you are...well...you just _are…_" He gestured at her in a mute invitation, asking her to consider herself as he was considering her.

It was Sarah's turn to look away for a second. "Ah...I...in high school...braces, bad hair, no money for trendy clothes. Boring yellow car."

Chuck laughed softly, not at her, but at himself. She saw him absently pat the pocket he had put his keys in. "Really? Really?" he asked twice. Sarah nodded once.

Chuck went on. "I guess I forget that other folks faced hurdles in high school too. What 's that line? 'Be kind, everyone is fighting a great battle.' I sometimes forget that I am...was not the only one."

Sarah leaned in. "_You_ had a difficult time in high school too?"

"You can't find that surprising, right? I mean, look at me."

"What about you?" Sarah asked, doing as he requested, looking at him.

He grimaced under her scrutiny. "Imagine _this_.." he gestured to himself, up and down his lankiness, '...only less filled-out," he chuckled in self-deprecation, "and yet more awkward. And add two letters..."

"Letters? You played sports?" Sarah did not understand.

"No, not letters like that, letters of honor,— letters of dishonor, _AV_ — Audio Visual. I was the missable guy pushing the squeaky cart, the cart with the projector on it."

Sarah nodded, remembering such guys from her own high school. "Oh."

Chuck nodded, his self-deprecation transmuting from audible to visual, from a chuckle into a smile.

The door opened and two women walked in. 'Strutted in' might have been a better term. They made an entrance.

Sarah saw Chuck glance up, react. One woman noticed him and she waved to him, a willowy brunette painted in a glittering midnight blue dress. The woman with her was much shorter with short blonde hair, wearing a short black skirt and a black t-shirt with the words "_Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet_", on it.

Chuck waved stiffly and continued to watch the brunette even after she turned to the bar.

Sarah blinked.

Blinked at something.

"Someone you _know_, Chuck?"

Chuck sighed, slumped a bit. "Yeah. We work next door to each other. My software design firm is next to the lawyers' office where she's a legal assistant. I see her about every day and she always waves but we've never spoken."

Sarah turned back to Chuck — she had been watching the brunette too. "Never? Why is that?"

Chuck reached up and rubbed his chin, a nervous gesture. He swallowed hard. "Look at her."

"I am," Sarah said unable to keep her voice from flattening, "and...?"

"Look at me again. It's like a Mensa Test. _Which of these does not belong?_ But, unlike Mensa tests, the answer is obvious." He pointed to himself, the answer.

Sarah flashed back to her seduction class, to her overbearing instructor, Roan Montgomery.

Montgomery preached against apparent self-consciousness in seductions:

_If you are aware of yourself, you're doing the mark's job, and crowding him out. Pay attention to him; never seem to be paying attention to yourself. For the purposes of seduction, the mark has to believe you are aware only of him._

He had told Sarah that over and over early in the class and when self-consciousness, inexperience, and embarrassment consumed her. She learned the lesson, learned to press her self-consciousness down deep, to a level at which it did not register any longer even if it was present. _It's always present_.

Montgomery had been right, but learning that lesson had cost Sarah. It had started her slow self-erosion at the Farm, her loss of any sense of who she was or might be — other than what Graham and her instructors wanted her to be.

Chuck regarded her apologetically as she looked away, remembered. "Sorry about all this," he offered. "I just didn't expect to see her here. She caught me off-guard."

Although Sarah disliked the taste of her own words, she forced a smile at Chuck, moving a shoulder toward the woman. "Go talk to her. What's it going to hurt? What's her name?"

"Jackie. Her name is Jackie. I don't know her last name."

"So, find out. There's a place to start. Just pay attention to her, not to you."

He looked at her for a moment and she was unsure what he was thinking — another new experience in a situation like this. He could be unreadable. Most men she spent time with had faces covered with newsprint, all headlines and inhuman interest stories.

"But, I'm...um...now I'm sort of here with _you_, Sarah."

She smiled, no forcing. Chuck was genuinely...sweet. She saw Jackie turn and give the two of them a close look, Sarah in particular.

"Well, that's nice of you, Chuck. But this isn't a date, at least not one that we agreed to, consented to. I don't think it counts. And I believe Jackie seeing you with me has generated an uptick in her interest, an interest that was already there. She wasn't waving at you for no reason, you know."

Chuck looked at Jackie and she looked away. He turned back to Sarah and gave her a weak smile. "I've actually been seeing this woman…"He trailed off in embarrassment.

"Oh, sorry, I thought…"

"No, no," Chuck said, his hands up, "not _seeing _like that. She's sort of a...dating coach. She's been trying to help me get my nerve up to talk to Jackie, telling me what to say, do."

Sarah felt her stomach tighten a little. "Really?"

Chuck nodded. "Yeah, _pathetic_, I know. But I had this bad experience in college and since then I just can't seem to get...to get my mojo back." He crinkled his nose as he said 'mojo'.

She couldn't resist. "'Mojo'?"

Chuck now cringed. He turned away and watched as Carina took Morgan's hand and led him into an open area between tables. They started dancing to the slow tune the band had started.

Morgan was trying to figure out how to dance with Carina without looking up at her, emphasizing their difference in height. His problem was that if he looked straight ahead, he was facing Carina's breasts.

Chuck grinned at Morgan's plight and turned to see Sarah grinning at it too.

"Would you like to dance?"

For a split-second, Sarah felt cold. "Shouldn't you be asking _Jackie_ that question?"

Chuck shook his head emphatically. "Maybe. But I would _like_ to dance with you."

Sarah loved to dance and she had to admit that she found Chuck...moderately charming. _What could it hurt? Maybe it will bolster his confidence._

Chuck stood up and extended his hand. Sarah took it and by a gentle touch, he beckoned her — that was the right phrase — to a spot beside Carina and Morgan, who were swaying together.

Chuck opened his arms and Sarah stepped into his embrace. It all happened before she could think, plan, command herself. She put her arms around him loosely. He smelled good. It was not cologne; it was him. He smelled good: at once clean, soapy, warm, musky, invitingly _male_. _He smells right_. She closed her eyes and inhaled.

Chuck turned out to be a good dancer, not at all awkward as he led her to believe. Despite her intention to keep the dance formal, friendly, she leaned in, little by little, allowing his scent to envelope her along with his arms. She started to relax, losing herself in the music and her partner. Her embrace of him tightened, turn by turn.

Despite the strangeness of the situation and her recollection of Roan Montgomery, and despite her normal plight of thinking of the men she interacted with — even outside of work — as marks, she could not think of Chuck as anything but..._Chuck_.

He rotated with her in his arms and she let the music course through her body, let the warmth of Chuck's embrace, not too tight, not too loose, just right, comfort her. More ripples. Here was yet another novelty: finding a man's embrace a source of comfort, not discomfort, feeling like he was fully in the present with her, vertical, and not in some imagined near future, horizontal.

As they turned together, as she lost herself, she had a moment of self-discovery, akin to the one she had undergone in Budapest. She was not sure what she discovered, though, because just as it arrived, she felt a finger-tap on her shoulder, and the discovery retreated.

Sarah turned her head and saw Jackie.

"Hi, I was wondering if I could cut in?"

_No._

Sarah wanted to refuse but she turned back to Chuck. He was staring at Jackie, a strange, troubled look on his face. Sarah felt his arms tighten around her slightly, but she slipped from them.

"Sure," she said with a casualness she did not feel. "He's a good dancer."

"I can see that," Jackie offered with a smile, but she spoke to Chuck, not to Sarah.

Jackie was striking, Sarah had to admit. Reluctantly. Her ink-dark hair, her bright green eyes — striking. _Damn._

Sarah stepped away. A small step. Chuck looked at her and looked at a loss. Jackie stepped to Chuck, replacing Sarah. Sarah retreated to the table and sat down.

Carina and Morgan were at the table, fresh drinks in front of them, a waiter just leaving.

Sarah stared at the tabletop for a moment, blank, then glanced up to see Carina's narrowed eyes. Carina then faced away from Sarah, peering at Chuck and his new partner, then facing Sarah again.

"What gives, Sarah?" Carina leaned forward, frowning. "You looked like you were..._enjoying_ yourself."

Sarah shook her head, waved her hand in an attempt at a dismissive gesture. "He's a good dancer but…"

"But that's _Jackie!_" Morgan whispered. "Chuck's been hoping to meet her for a long time." Morgan then seemed to come to himself, to realize the situation. He looked at Sarah. "Sorry, I...um…"

Sarah put her disappointment away, forced it down. "Not a problem. I'm glad I could help. Help Chuck. I think we made Jackie a little jealous — or at least we piqued her interest."

Jackie laughed at that moment, loudly enough to be heard at the table. "Bartowski?" Jackie asked, chuckling, "that _is_ quite a name."

Sarah watched as Jackie rested her hand for a moment on Chuck's chest, then put her arms around him again, dropping her cheek against Chuck's shoulder. As they turned, once Jackie's back was toward them, Morgan shot Chuck a thumbs-up. Chuck closed his eyes in response, and Sarah saw him open them to glance at her but the turn continued and soon Chuck's face was no longer toward her. Jackie's now was, and she had a look of contentment.

Sarah blinked.

Carina had been watching it all; Sarah had felt her eyes. Carina stood up with a vexed huff. "C'mon, Sarah, let's go to the ladies' room." She grabbed Sarah's hand and yanked her up.

ooOoo

They made their way between the tables and dancers and to a narrow hallway with a sign marked 'Restrooms'. Still tugging Sarah along, Carina shouldered open the door with 'Women' on it, never letting go of Sarah's hand.

Once inside, Carina did a quick scan of the bathroom, pushing open the two stall doors. No one was there but the two of them. She wheeled on Sarah, her eyes flashing.

"What's up with you, Sarah? You've seemed...odd...since you showed up. And I saw you, watched you dancing with Morgan's friend, with _Chuck_, and I don't think I've...well, I don't get it, why _surrender_ him to that brunette? You wanted to keep dancing with him. Keep what's yours, girl!"

Sarah gave a non-committal shrug, small and concessive in relation to Carina's larger-than-life demand. "He told me he's been interested in her. She just showed up and...since he was interested in her...and since we don't know each other...I...wasn't going to interfere...you know, when she...when Jackie asked."

"Are you sure he wanted you to let...Jackie...cut in?"

Sarah's chin had fallen during her halting response; she raised it and her eyebrows. "You mean, he didn't?"

Carina took a turn shrugging. "I'm not sure, but his face when you two leaned in did not look like the face of a man who was hoping for something better…just biding his time."

Carina glared. "You know, Sarah, I get that _all _this…" Carina made an expansive gesture that indicated the bar, "...is not as much your scene as mine, that you don't thrive in it as I do...But I just saw you — _you_, _not_ the Farm's seduction class — I saw _you_ genuinely react to a man and I don't think that should be...I don't know..._wasted_." Carina's voice softened on the last word, the softness itself emphasizing it. She reached out and put her hand carefully on Sarah's shoulder. "Why let another woman have what you want?"

Sarah was at a loss. She had not expected Carina to know, to notice, all of that, any of that. Sarah was not sure _she_ wanted to know all of that, any of that. _It's not true._

"Look, Carina, yes, he's…charming. Attractive. But — I wasn't planning on telling you this here, in the bathroom — but, I _quit,_ Carina. Resigned. I am not in the Company anymore. I came out here to find something else, to start over. The last thing I need to do is complicate an already complicated situation by...by...getting invested in a man I just met, a man who's interested in another woman."

Carina blinked at Sarah in drop-jawed silence for a moment.

Then Carina exploded, her arms flung wide in outrage. "_Quit_? _Quit_? Sarah Walker isn't _Agent_ Sarah Walker anymore?" Color rose in Carina's cheeks, almost matching her hair. "Quit? Quit? Shit."

"Carina, please quit saying 'quit'. Yes, I quit. Done. Resigned. Signed and sealed. Gave up my apartment. My other stuff is still in my car, at your place. I don't live in DC now. I live here. Or I will once I find a place, and figure out a new job."

Carina's color continued to rise. She narrowed her eyes into suspicious seams. "This is some new cover, right? Your new CIA cover is as an ex-CIA agent? What mission would require that?"

"Good God, Carina, no! None. No mission. None. _I'm done_. I'm out of it. I'm just..._Sarah_."

Just then, a woman hurried through the door but Carina shot her a look that was a physical blow and it sent the woman reeling backward, muttering an apology for the interruption.

Carina then turned the look on Sarah, a blue laser of disbelief. "Just Sarah? Why didn't you talk to _me_ about this? I'm your best friend. This is our _life_, _both_ our lives. This is what we _do_. We're _spies_. It's all we are and all we'll ever be."

Sarah shook her head. "It's not all we are, Carina. It's not all I will ever be, not all you could be. I don't know what more I am, not yet, but I know I am more. I know you are."

Carina clenched her fists at her side. "I don't want to be anything more. This is enough for me. Always has been, always will be. It was enough for you..._once_." Carina spat the last word more than spoke it, a hiss. For a moment, Sarah thought of a spitting cobra.

Sara winced. "No, it wasn't. I believed it was, sort of; I admit that. I was wrong, wrong — wrong about myself."

Carina shook her head and turned toward the large mirror over the sinks. She looked at the reflection of Sarah and of herself. Carina shook her head again; she shrank a little.

"So, how will you live?"

Sarah looked at Carina in the mirror. "I don't know. However people live, I guess. Normal people."

"And you know how to do that?"

Sarah felt her pulse rate rise. "No, I don't. But I'm ready to try it, to learn."

For a moment, Carina's eyes moved between her own reflection and Sarah's, a visible sign of some inner movement. She blew out a breath and her shoulders sagged. "You can't change this, go back?"

Sarah bit her bottom lip and then spoke. "I don't know. Maybe. But I don't want to."

"So, is this it, then?"

"'It', Carina? What do you mean?"

Carina's eyes softened for a split-second, a barely-there registration of vulnerability. "If you're done with the spy life, then you're done with me, right? At least, after you've transitioned out?"

"No, Carina. I don't...You're not my friend because you are a spy. You're my friend because you are you, in all your patience-tasking glory." Sarah hazarded a small smile.

Carina's shoulder rose along with one corner of her mouth. "I am glorious, huh?"

Sarah narrowed her eyes and smiled. "Not sure that's exactly what I said."

"Close enough for government workers. We can talk about this later, I guess. Let's see if we can get you another dance with Tall, Dark, and Curly."

Sarah made a face. "Leave him alone, Carina. He seems like a good guy. He deserves someone who's already normal, not someone who will have to go mountaineering to arrive at normal and who might vanish on the climb."

"We should leave the choice up to him."

Sarah said nothing to that. She followed Carina out of the bathroom. The woman who Carina had driven from the bathroom was standing in the hallway, dancing from foot to foot but not in time with the music. Carina saw her and took belated pity on her. "Go on. We're finished."

The woman rushed through the door.

ooOoo

Back in the bar, Sarah saw Chuck and Morgan seated at the table. Jackie and her short blonde friend were gone.

Chuck had his beer bottle in his hand, peering into its brown glass as if it were a dark and misshapen crystal ball. Sarah and Carina rejoined them.

Morgan smiled at Carina and stood. She joined him for another dance.

Chuck kept scrying the bottle.

"Chuck," Sarah said after a moment of silence, "where's Jackie?"

He finally broke the spell of the brown glass. "She got a call. Her boss needed her to come back to the office. Some problems with paperwork."

"How did the dance go?"

"Ok, but I got nervous. I did this nervous talking thing I do. I spiraled. She was probably relieved to get the call."

"Didn't your dating coach help you with that, with the nervous talking thing? You were fine talking to me."

Chuck was surprised; it was news to him. "Hey, that's true. When I was talking to you, I didn't do any of the things my dating coach told me to do. But I was thinking about what she told me when I started dancing with Jackie. But I couldn't figure out what to say. It was like I was trying to order off a huge menu in another language."

"Who's your dating coach?"

"A woman named Anna Wu."

"Maybe she's not the best dating coach for you," Sarah said, an idea popping unbidden into her mind, peculiar and irresistible. "You know, I could help. Help you. I have some...training that's relevant, and I bet I could help you get a date with Jackie, help you do well on it once you have it."

Chuck gave her a complicated glance, then looked away before she could even try to read it. When he looked back, the complications were gone, not vanished but hidden. "You're a dating coach?"

"No, but I don't have a job at the moment, I just got to town, and I would like to…help you. Maybe, along with my fee, you could show me around town?"

"How much would it cost me?"

"The same as Anna Wu, I guess. You tell me."

"Ok." Chuck's face showed puzzlement. "So, what relevant training do you have, other than having had to respond to endless sleazy pickup lines?"

Sarah smiled a small smile. _You have no idea. _ "I worked for a company that trained me, taught how to dress, how to move, how to talk…"

"Like _fashion or the movies_? Were you a model or an actress?"

Sarah froze.

Froze.

Sarah didn't want to lie to Chuck, but he had given her an easy way out. She would tell him the truth later, sometime, someplace more private. _I will. _"Yes, _both_, you might say."

Chuck seemed unsure of her answer, of the whole proposal. He glanced at Morgan and Carina, laughing together, spinning. "If I hire you, does that mean we can't dance anymore tonight?"

Sarah laughed. "No, it doesn't mean that. I'd like to dance again if you don't mind." The smooth jazz was beckoning her, or Chuck was (she decided not to sort that out), and she did not want to focus on her lie, hex Chuck, turn him into her mark. "So, shall we?"

Chuck's smiled at that, his smile sure. "Don't mind if we do." He stood up and extended his hand.

Beckoning.

Sarah took it. Hand in hand.

Yet, as they danced, she kept herself from leaning in, from losing herself again. She fought to keep her breathing shallow, so she would not breathe him in.

* * *

A/N: Hope everyone has a good weekend. Be sure to drop something in the jar for the band if you want them to keep playing.


	3. Self-(Dis)Belief

A/N: Late night conversation and the first coaching session. — Remember, character histories are somewhat different.

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Three: Self-(Dis)Belief

* * *

Sarah tossed on Carina's couch, unable to sleep. Turned. Tossed. Turned. She was trying not to think about Chuck Bartowski but he was fighting her, reappearing in her mind's eye as soon as she closed her blue eyes. And she could smell him on her, around her, in the apartment.

Crazy.

That was crazy. The pillowcase, sheets, and blankets Carina had supplied her were freshly laundered. Sarah was freshly showered. The scent of Chuck had to be in her head, not on her, around her, in the apartment. She felt surrounded by the man she had surrendered — or would surrender.

Surrender.

She tried to shift her mental gaze onto herself, never easy for her. But she needed to stop mentally staring at Chuck. _What was I thinking, offering to be his dating coach? Madness! _

So much about the evening was maddening. The repeated ripples of emotion, the cold and then the warmth, her sinking into Chuck's embrace and then her frantic dog-paddling to keep from sinking during the last of the evening; her studied effort to dance with Chuck without dancing _with _Chuck.

Crazy.

Mad. Madness.

_What was I thinking?_

She tossed again, turned, blinked at the ceiling.

_And what was happening to me when Jackie cut in? What did I discover? It's on the tip of my tongue…_

But thinking about her tongue made her think about Chuck, the overwhelming urge she had to kiss him when the little group of them broke up outside The Come-What-May.

ooOoo

_Carina stood against Morgan as he watched for a cab for Carina and Sarah. Chuck had offered to drive them back to Carina's, but Sarah refused before Carina could accept. _

_Morgan was smiling at Carina and she was giggling at something he said. Sarah watched, stunned, as Carina took Morgan's phone from him and gave him her number. Carina never did that — she never ceded even an iota of initiative in a relationship. She was all spontaneity, the man all receptivity. She might take his number but she would not give out her own. Except for tonight, evidently, and with a man who seemed as likely to inspire serious attention from Carina as...a Sesame Street character. Sarah would have been less surprised if Carina had gone home with Morgan than she was that Carina gave him her number. _

ooOoo

But Carina had been...odd...at moments during the evening. She seemed to know things about Sarah of which Sarah had taken Carina to be ignorant, wanted Carina to be ignorant.

— Among them were things of which Sarah wanted _herself_ to be ignorant, insofar as that was possible.

Sarah had mastered a deflected inner scrutiny that allowed herself only to see herself peripherally, never head-on. That deflection allowed her to unknow what she knew about herself, to hang sheers of ignorance between herself and her self-knowledge.

— She knew this about herself as she unknew everything about herself, everything that mattered.

A survival strategy.

Survival. _Don't dwell, don't recollect. Don't contend with yourself. You are the one enemy you cannot face._

Sarah sighed and moved on the couch, trying to get comfortable.

ooOoo

_On the street, Sarah had forced herself to face Chuck. He had been standing beside her, shifting his weight from one foot to another, and, like her, watching the interplay between Morgan and Carina. Sarah knew he was uncomfortable. He had been increasingly so as the evening aged. The difference between their first dance together and the later ones must have been plain to him. Sarah had gone from responsive to unresponsive, gone from leaning-in to at-arms-length. She had just gone... _

_Gone._

_He smiled at her, but the smile was tight, not expansive. "So, um...Coach, when should we start the...practice?" It was hard for her to tell how he felt: his voice was soft and his eyes complicated. _

"_Well, tomorrow's Sunday. I can't do much in the way of apartment hunting then, so maybe we could meet. You could show me some places in town and I could start coaching?"_

"_Have you never been to LA before?"_

_Sarah swallowed. _Not really in the daytime. I have been here in the dark a time or two, but never as a tourist, surely never as a resident. "_I have — but those visits...To say that I have been here before would be a little like saying I had been here before because I once caught a connecting flight at Bob Hope Airport."_

_Chuck was gazing at her face. He seemed now to be trying to read her as she had been trying to read him. "Well, okay. One problem. I drove my sister's car here tonight," he blushed, "and she'll need it tomorrow, so if we go somewhere, we will have to meet there."_

"_Meeting is fine. Let me give you my number and you can give me yours." _

_They exchanged numbers. _

_Chuck put his phone in his pocket. "Why don't we meet for lunch, then we can see some sights. Do we need to be any particular place for coaching?"_

_Sarah shook her head. "Not for our first lesson. Maybe later we will need to go someplace in particular or need certain...props. But tomorrow we won't."_

_He nodded just as the cab pulled up. Carina gave Morgan a quick kiss on the lips and got in. Chuck and Sarah, witnesses to the kiss, then looked at each other. He started to lean down, moving toward her cheek, and she wanted him to kiss her lips, but she extended her hand caught him in the mid-section. _

_He stopped, straightened up, then shook her hand. She slid in the seat beside Carina._

_Carina, seeing the awkwardness, sighed and rolled her eyes. _

_On the way back to Carina's, neither had spoken. Once in her apartment, Carina went into her room. She came back in sweats and carrying what Sarah would need to convert the couch into a bed. She dropped the stack of items in an armchair and stalked away. _

_Sarah was not sure if she was angry, and if she was angry, Sarah was not sure about what. No doubt Sarah's quitting was likely involved, if Carina was mad, but perhaps the stuff with Chuck and Jackie was involved too. _

_Sarah knew she would eventually find out what was on Carina's mind. Carina was never one to suffer in silence. _

ooOoo

Sarah was always one to suffer in silence: it had been so since she was little.

She put her hand on her forehead and gazed up at Carina's ceiling. It made no sense — how agitated she was, how shaky she felt. She might suffer in silence but attacks of nerves? That was another novelty. _Why am I so nervous? Why does everything feel so shaky?_

She sat up and turned on the lamp beside the couch. _If I can't sleep, I might as well prep for tomorrow. If I am going to help Chuck, and take his money, I need to put in some time. _

The evening had given her an idea of where to start.

As much as she disliked it, she made herself think about her seduction classes, about Roan Montgomery's discussions of self-belief, self-confidence. She got up and grabbed a pen from the coffee table, crossed to the kitchen and flicked on a light, and sat down at a small table. She found a piece of paper, the back of a mailing circular, and put it in front of herself. What she needed was to stop thinking about the evening at the bar and start thinking about her coaching.

She had started writing when Carina came padding into, blinking her eyes in the kitchen light, wrapped in a surprisingly threadbare robe.

"What are you _doing,_ Blondie? I'm used to your ceaseless planning where missions are concerned — but I thought you quit. You did, right?"

Sarah put her pen down and placed her hand on top of her notes, trying to do it casually, to make the obscuring of them seem unintentional. She could tell that it had not worked. Carina pulled her face to one side and stared at the paper, although she could not read it.

When Sarah said nothing, Carina volunteered: "Hand that pen over, poetaster! You trying to write a love poem for Chuck?"

Sarah scoffed but felt a blush. Carina shrugged but grinned. "Hey, _everything's_ changing. Who knows what you'll be up to next, Emily Dickinson?"

"Poetaster? Really?"

"Hey, I can read."

"Can, yes, _do_, not-so-much."

"Thank you, Mistress Yoda." Carina bowed, her robe making her seem an unemployed Jedi. _Even I know that bit of pop culture_.

"If you must know, I'm prepping for my new job — a temp job." Sarah looked back down at the paper but did not move her hand, hoping Carina would just take her blinking questions and go back to her bedroom.

Carina pulled out the chair opposite Sarah and sat down. _Damn. Nothing's working out as I want. _Sarah felt shaky again.

Carina cocked her head. "So, tell me, Sarah. Tell me about the temp job you somehow landed between arriving at my apartment this afternoon and my finding you at my table at…" Carina looked at the clock on the kitchen wall, "...2:45 _am_."

"Chuck hired me."

Carina's eyes saucered. "Geez, Sarah! Leave the company to become a nerd's a kept woman?"

Sarah started to protest then noticed the sneaky smile on Carina's face. Sarah tried to take the subject in a slightly different direction. "Do you think he is a...nerd?"

Carina chuckled. "I'll bet he was on the AV team in high school."

Sarah looked away and Carina crowed: "I'm _right_!"

Sarah looked back. "Yes, he said he did AV in high school. But lots of people are one way in high school and another when they grow up…"

Sarah expected Carina to snark: to talk about how fabulous she had been in high school or to take another shot at Chuck. Carina did neither. Instead, she glanced down at the arm of her robe, its onetime black a current-day grey. She picked at a loose thread but did not pull it; instead, she shoved it carefully up the robe's sleeve. Sarah saw that her eyes had softened as she did it.

"Where did you get your robe, Carina?" Sarah asked, careful with her tone.

Carina glanced up. "An inheritance." She shut her lips and seemed intent on saying no more. In fact, regret flashed across her face.

It struck Sarah that Carina was her friend and had been for years, and she knew nothing about her past, her high school days, her parents, her hometown. Carina knew nothing about Sarah's past, either.

Carina seemed to have a similar thought. She spoke, her voice betraying discomfort. "Actually, it was my mom's. She wore it for years and I think of her when I wear it. Sometimes I think it still smells like her, even though I've washed it countless times since she died."

Carina finished and the word 'died' seemed to color the kitchen, darken it despite the light.

Chuck's scent, unbidden, came to Sarah as it had earlier. She made herself focus on her friend. "Sorry, Carina. I didn't know your mom was...that she had…died."

Carina nodded. "It was a while ago."

Sarah wanted to repay Carina's trust, but she could not tell her about her mom — not now that her mom had the baby. That Sarah had worked with Carina was in her file. She did not want to risk giving anyone a way to track the baby.

"My dad's still alive, but I don't know where he is. I haven't seen him in...years. He was in jail for a while but he's not now. Difficult to find your daughter when she works for the Company and I have had no time to search for him."

"No, I know how you are...were. Work, work, work. But, you do now — have time, that is, right?"

"I suppose I do. Maybe, once I get...settled, I will look for him."

Carina nodded, then she smiled. "You aren't getting away with it, you know. Tell me about that temp job."

Sarah took a breath. "I'll be working for Chuck."

Carina rocked back a little. "What do you know about software development?"

"How do you know that's what he does?"

Carina shook her head. "Look, I don't sort of set up my friend without doing some recon work. I had Morgan tell me about his friend, about Chuck."

"Morgan? You mean _Martin?_"

Carina hung her head for a second. "That was my bad. I was flustered."

"By Morgan?"

"Yeah, mostly…"

"Mostly?"

Carina shrugged and said no more for a moment. Then: "So, that temp job?"

Sarah sighed but answered. "I will not be working for his software firm, Carina. I'll be working...for him."

"For him? Doing what?"

Sarah took a breath again. "I'll be his dating coach." She did not pause between sentences. "I'll help him win that woman, Jackie."

Carina said nothing.

She went statue-still.

And then laughter began to popcorn from her. In a moment, she was laughing long and loud. She leaned back in her chair, overcome, then leaned back too far and went over with a still-laughing yelp.

Sarah jumped up to help her, but Carina was just on her back, unhurt, laughing so hard that she was bicycling her legs in the air. Her face was redder than her hair.

Sarah looked down at her, and then she started to laugh. A little, then a lot. That made Carina laugh harder, and then they were caught in a laughter-loop, each making the other laugh harder. Sarah sank down onto the floor, seating herself beside Carina.

Eventually, they both recovered their breath and slowed their laughter. Sarah gave Carina a look. "What, exactly, was so funny?"

Carina burst into laughter again and Sarah got caught in her wake again. It took another couple of minutes for them to calm down.

This time, Carina spoke when the laughter stopped. "God, I needed that. One bad thing about spying. It ain't no laugh riot."

"No," Sarah agreed, "not much to laugh about. And I was never funny anyway."

"Until tonight. _From the Company to Comedy: The Sarah Walker Story_."

Sarah stood up and went back to her seat. She crumpled the paper with her notes into her fist and moved it beneath the table as Carina stood her chair back up and sat down.

"Why is it so funny, me as a dating coach?"

"Because I don't think I have known you ever to go on a real date. Cover dates aplenty, sure, but never a real one. I mean...I don't claim to know the...in's and out's of your personal life...but I would bet that you have never been on a real date since you joined the Company."

_Not before, certainly. _"Why do you think that?"

"Well," Carina said, "I know you were partners for a while with that one agent, Larkin, but you can't tell me he ever took you on a date. Again, cover stuff doesn't count."

Sarah glanced at the tabletop. "No, we never went out together, as _us, _you know, off the clock."

Sarah felt suddenly mortified. She had never thought about that before, thought about things in that way before.

She had been Bryce Larkin's partner for almost a year and more-than-his-partner for seven or eight months of that time, but they had never _dated_. They worked almost all the time and had sex when they had the energy during their infrequent mission downtimes — and that was...all.

Bryce had invited her to Cabo with him just before she had ended things, and perhaps, had she gone, that would have involved dates or something like them. But she had refused to go and then she had broken off their more-than-partnership.

Her old trouble had been with her from the first — she was never with Bryce without feeling like one of them was the other's mark, or that each was the other's mark. She felt like she was being CIA-seduced or CIA-seducing. Nothing seemed natural, spontaneous, the unbidden upsurge of undeniable passion; it all felt more or less a part of the job, clickety-clack, like their bed was a Farm exercise. Sometimes she even imagined Roan Montgomery watching, scoring them — an anaphrodisiac if there ever was one.

And since Bryce, Sarah had been more distant than ever with men. Until The Come-What-May. But that did not matter: Chuck was not for her; she was not for Chuck. Sarah was not for anyone. She would help him and then they would part company, no longer even be employer and employee. He would be Jackie's.

Sarah realized Carina was watching her, waiting for her to go on.

"What? Why does that matter? I was Roan Montgomery's star student in seduction at the Farm."

"Color me unimpressed."

"Huh?" Sarah said, annoyed.

Carina waved her hand. "I'm not questioning your CIA-_Full Monty_-seduction credentials, Sarah. I've seen your work. There's only one person better than you, and that's _me_. But you know, don't you, that the...weaponized, cynical shit Roan Montgomery taught you would never work for Chuck? Think about him. Did you for one minute believe he was angling to claim your panties as a trophy last night?"

"Well, no…"

"_No _is right, Sarah. I saw him dancing with you. You gobsmacked him but he was not drooling. I don't mean he's _immune_ to your...charms...but he was not after them, he was after you."

"He was not. After me, I mean. Or after my...charms. But why does that matter?"

"Because what you were taught, what Roan Montgomery teaches, is something Chuck will reject. He won't have it, won't do it. You could use that crap to teach him how to sleep with Jackie, or whatever her name is. But that's not what he wants."

Sarah's mouth was open, but she did not know what to say. She gripped her notes more tightly in her fist beneath the table. "You mean he doesn't want to sleep with Jackie?"

Carina rolled her eyes. "Yeah, let's talk about Jackie." Carina put her hands palm-down on the table. "Look, Sarah. I have rather...extensive...experience with men. I stay away from Chuck's type. Like the plague."

"But why?"

"Because he would want _me. _There are things I would be prepared to...give...him, but that's not one of them. Here's the deal, Sarah. Since you want me to talk about Jackie, I'll talk about Jackie." She stared hard at Sarah for a moment, then she shook her head and began in a mock-lecturing tone: "Does Chuck want to sleep with Jackie. Well, in one sense, yes, but that's because he wants to be in love with her and sleeping with her would be the most intimate..._expression_ of that.

"So, in another sense, no, he doesn't want to sleep with her. _He wants to be in love with her_." She paused as if testing her words. "Sex with her..._making lov_e...to her," Carina seemed to stumble over the phrase, "would be a natural consequence of his being in love with her and her being in love with him, but it is not what he is after, not as such. To think he is would be to think you drove to California because you desired to burn gas — when instead your burning gas was a consequence of your desire to be in California. — If you see what I mean?"

Sarah understood the logic of it, so she nodded, but she felt lost. "Do you think that's true, Carina? Forgive me, but do _you _think there are people — _men_ — like that?"

Carina did not answer. Her expression was pensive, complex.

Instead of answering, she got up and left the kitchen. While she was gone, Sarah smoothed the paper with her notes and folded it neatly. She got up and hurriedly stuffed it in her purse beside the couch, then ran back to her chair and sat down before Carina came back.

When Carina came back, she was carrying two books. Sarah noticed them. "Carina, I don't need books. I know about the birds and the bees."

"I know, but I'm not sure how much you know about the boys and the girls. Here."

She handed Sarah a regular-sized paperback, _Dating for Dummies_. Then she handed Sarah a much smaller paperback, well-thumbed, _How To Love. _

Sarah looked from the books to Carina. "Don't ask," Carina said, "even I wonder sometimes how...other folks live. Take them, read them. Particularly the little one. It's simple but...kinda deep."

Carina turned and hurried from the room, leaving Sarah with the books.

She left the _Dummies _book on the kitchen table but she took the smaller _How To_ with her. It was by someone named Thich Nhat Hanh.

She sat down on the couch and opened it, thumbing in a few pages. She stopped on a short paragraph entitled "Understanding is the Nature of Love".

As she read the paragraph, one line jumped out at her. "Understanding is love's other name."

_Huh, who knew love had an alias? 'Understanding'. _

Sarah liked the sound of that, _understanding. _

Maybe she could use it to help Chuck. Although he seemed to be understanding already.

She looked at the facing page, entitled "Recognizing True Love". She read:

"True love includes a feeling of deep joy that we are alive."

Sarah stopped.

Stopped.

Stopped and stared at the page.

Deep joy.

She knew then what she had discovered about herself when she was first dancing with Chuck, what she discovered before Jackie cut in, what she had discovered and then lost to the distraction.

She had discovered that she could feel a deep joy that she was alive. She had felt it.

In Budapest, after saving the baby.

In The Come-What-May, during her first dance with Chuck.

_It made zero sense_: she was no proper candidate for joy, deep or otherwise. Agent Sarah Walker — what _she_ had been, done. Her father. Langston Graham. Perhaps she had done the world, her country, some good, but it had come at the cost of her, of her _self_, at the cost of her capacities to have or enjoy good things.

Joy.

Her life had disqualified her for joy.

Joy. It made zero sense.

After a trembling moment, she shut the little book and threw it one-handedly onto the coffee table, as if it were on fire. She spent the next two hours _not-thinking_ about what she read or what she had felt until she fell into a brief, restless sleep.

ooOoo

Sarah climbed from the cab and looked around as it drove away. She was at the place Chuck had told her to meet him — The Grammy Museum. Figueroa Street.

Then she spotted Chuck near the entrance. He saw her and came jogging toward her, a bright smile on his face. He was wearing a green shirt, untucked, over jeans and he was wearing high-top, canvas sneakers, black. But he had not been wearing them last night. Last night his shoes, everything he had on, had been...dressier. But she liked today's casual look too. For a second, she wondered what he would look like in a suit or tux — but then she made herself tuck that thought away.

"Hi, Sarah," he said as he reached her, surprisingly breathless from his short jog. "It's good to see you again."

"You too, Chuck."

They stood there for a moment, looking at each other. Chuck cleared his throat. "I hope this is okay, you know, as a place to go. I thought I could show you the museum, maybe teach you a little about music, while you teach me about...dating."

Sarah nodded. "That sounds nice, Chuck. You talk to me about music, and I will talk to you about self-confidence — or, as a teacher of mine like to put it, self-belief."

They turned and headed to the entrance. Sarah realized that Chuck already had tickets in his hand. She had not noticed before. That was strange. They, the CIA, had taught her to always look at hands, to keep track of what might be in them — a weapon — it was the first thing she looked at when someone approached her as Chuck had. An old habit. But it had not kicked in. She had been looking at Chuck, at his clothes, his shoes, but mostly at his face. His smile. She shook her head.

"_Self-belief_?" Chuck had asked, "why not _self-confidence_?"

As she watched Chuck give the tickets to the woman at the door, Sarah explained. "Well, either word will do, but this teacher liked to use the former." They moved inside and stepped into the lobby. Sarah went on. "He complained that confidence all-too-often is an _attitude_. Something you have to work up and maintain. But belief is normally something you just _have_ and you don't have to work it up or maintain it. The person who is confident is expending energy maintaining his attitude, energy that out to be directed toward the person you are interested in. In your case, toward Jackie. So, we need you to just believe in yourself, to have the settled conviction that you are good, absolutely worth her time and interest, so you can spend your time around her thinking about _her_, not about you."

They started toward the exhibits. Chuck was listening, his hands in his pockets. He nodded. "Okay, I guess I kinda know what that means from last night. When I was dancing with Jackie, I really was thinking about me, I guess. About what _I _needed to do or say, how _I _was dancing…"

"Right. And that was the reason you got all twisted up. Making conversation is easy if you are really listening, you know, like you are right now, or like you did when you were talking to me last night."

Chuck looked at her out of the corner of his eye and she saw him shove his hands deeper into his pockets. "Are you okay, Chuck?"

He seemed like he started a response, then stopped it. He started another. "Um, yeah. Fine. Just getting adjusted to this…" he pulled one hand from his pocket and gestured between them, "...it's...different from last night."

"Yes," Sarah said, a twinge of something distracting her for a second. "Yes, it is." She did not know quite how to go on.

Chuck put his hand back in his pocket so that both hands were pocketed again. "So, how does a person go about gaining this...self-belief?"

As Chuck asked, they reached the entrance to the current primary exhibit, _I Am, I Said: Selections from the Neil Diamond Collection_.

Sarah looked at the sign. "Who is Neil Diamond?"

Chuck grinned and his hands emerged from his pockets, allowing him to gesture. "You don't know who Neil Diamond is?" He windmilled his long arms, flabbergasted. "I'm glad I brought you. Think of this place as a musical hospital, and of yourself as a musical emergency case."

And then, without preamble, and without a trace of embarrassment, Chuck began to sing.

"_I am"... I said  
__To no one there  
__And no one heard at all  
__Not even the chair_

"_I am"... I cried  
_"_I am"... said I  
__And I am lost and I can't  
__Even say why_

_Leavin' me lonely still_

Sarah stood with her mouth hanging and knew it, but she could not help it. Chuck's voice was beautiful, and the incongruity of him standing beneath the sign, signing the words…

…And _those words_. Sarah's eyes filled with tears.

She blinked them back.

Chuck finished and there was a split-second of silence, then other museum patrons began to applaud. Chuck colored, but bowed. Applause continued.

Sarah felt cold all over and warm all over, all over at the same time.

Those words. They were a counterpoint to Thich Nhat Hanh's words.

It all made zero sense.

Everything felt shaky again.

And then one of Chuck's hands was out, extended toward her, beckoning her yet again.

Reflexively, she shut her mouth, put her hand in his, and they went into the exhibit.

* * *

A/N: More museum lessons next time.

How about a review? _Don't leave me lonely (still). Share!_

By the way, that Neil Diamond song here and the Johnny Hartman song from Chapter 1 both matter to the story. Give them a listen.


	4. Make Fake

A/N: More story. We add a central character and further set our scene.

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Four: Make Fake

* * *

As Chuck led Sarah into the exhibit, she fought to regain control of herself. She felt ethereal, dizzy; she felt leaden, numb.

She was a live contradiction: she made zero sense.

She realized she was holding Chuck's hand and dropped it. He turned to her, but she turned from him and toward the first display in the exhibit — the costume Neil Diamond wore on the cover of _The Jazz Singer. _

Chuck cleared his throat. "I take it you haven't seen the movie, _The Jazz Singer_?"

Sarah shook her head and did not face him. Tears were still in her eyes and she did not want him to see them. Why she was crying them was beyond her: she was used to issuing commands to herself and having them be obeyed, as if she were the despot of herself. Her willpower had always been formidable, and it had carried her through a life of disappointment and difficulty, kept her soldiering along, instead of deserting.

But, as Carina had said last night, _everything's changing_, and the shakiness Sarah felt and kept feeling seemed to her to be both in her and outside her.

Ripples.

Upheaval.

Earthquake.

Her heart the epicenter of..._something_.

She realized Chuck was telling her the plot of the movie. She also realized his hands were back in his pockets. She tuned in to what he was saying.

"The movie's pretty awful, actually, and Diamond — _he can't act_. His character seems so narcissistic that it's hard not to think Diamond himself is, and that his narcissism won't tolerate him even pretending to be someone else…"

Sarah finally looked at Chuck. "But the way you sang that song, out there, I thought you were a fan."

Chuck blushed a bit. "Well, I like some of his songs, and I really like that song; someone wisely chose it to supply the name of the exhibit. And I guessed...I thought you...might like it."

Chuck's gaze intensified, as if he were trying to understand something about her, trying to bring something out-of-focus into focus. Sarah's old habits picked that moment to reassert themselves, and she felt her eyes frost into opacity, her face slacken into expressionlessness.

Automatic.

Although Chuck did not move externally, she saw him step back from her internally. Disappointment curled the corners of his mouth. His shoulders hunched, and he drove his hands deeper into his pockets.

Sarah started coaching. "You know, Chuck, if we are going to work on self-belief, we also have to work on comportment. Standing like that, putting your hands in your pockets, — none of it suggests a man of self-belief."

He nodded and pulled his hands from his pockets, glancing at them as if he were surprised to find them stationed still on his wrists. He glanced up at her. "Sorry, I was...um…"

"It's okay, Chuck, it just sends the wrong message. You are tall, nicely tall, and you have broad shoulders. Don't minimize either by hunching or slumping or by pocketing your hands. Jackie's tall, probably has often been taller than the surrounding men, and I'm guessing she finds your height attractive. And that word you like, 'lanky', let it go. Don't describe yourself that way. Let her find the adjectives for you. I wouldn't say you were lanky, I'd say you have a swimmer's build — nothing wrong with that, not at all."

She had intended to give him a simple, objective assessment, but she heard a note, felt a note, of personal satisfaction creep into her words. She made herself stop.

Chuck had grown uncomfortable while she spoke, then he had blushed. But he straightened himself and gave his hands a slight shake, as if scolding them for their disappearing act. Although they were standing close together, Sarah felt a distance open between them. It relieved her and she cursed it.

"Standing tall, now, Coach, and hands out of pockets." Chuck gave her a slightly silly smile.

She could tell he felt the distance too and was trying to close it, or to cope with it. He gazed at her again with his soft, intent gaze. Too intent. Too searching. She stepped back.

Chuck gestured to the next display, and they walked to it in silence. It was another costume, the one Diamond wore on the cover of _Hot August Night. _Sarah looked at it and gave Chuck a cautious grin. "Diamond was a clothes-horse, huh?"

Chuck nodded with a mirroring caution. "Yeah. Guess so."

"And that brings me to another thing," Sarah said. "Let's talk about clothes — _Esprit de Costumes_…"

Chuck grinned. "Morticia — you spoke French!"

Sarah, who had smiled as she used the lovely phrase, frowned. "_Morticia! _Why would you call me _that_?"

Chuck's face fell. He looked lost. "I wasn't, I was quoting a line from a TV show, _The Addams Family._" He looked for recognition on Sarah's face and found none. "It was a great black-and-white show about this...I don't know...this spooky-inverted family. The husband was Gomez and his wife was Morticia. He got...excited...whenever she spoke French."

Sarah walked away from the _Hot August Night _display, her heart pounding. For a moment, she had taken Chuck to know about her, the CIA, the terminations. _Morticia. _But it had been innocent. Still, she needed a moment to recompose. The name had struck her like a hammer-blow.

Chuck jogged a few paces to catch up. "I'm sorry if I offended you in some way, Sarah."

"No, Chuck, it's okay. I just...didn't understand." She hoped he would ask her nothing more and she made her tone curt enough to suggest that to him. She stopped at the next display, the guitar on which Diamond had written his early hits. It just looked like a guitar.

Chuck was silent for a moment, looking at it too, then he spoke softly. "So, do you speak French? Because the way you said that, it sounded...native."

Sarah looked at him. "I speak virtually none. But that particular phrase was one that the man who taught me how to dress liked to use when he would lecture me on clothing choices."

Chuck glanced at her, head to toe. "Well, clearly he knew what he was doing. You look beautiful...I mean you look great. Um...nice. Nice. Last night too." He made a point of facing the guitar and studying it.

Sarah realized that she was not dressed at all as Roan Montgomery would have told her to dress if she were seducing someone. She had on a solid red blouse, black jeans, snug but not at all tight, and black boots. To the extent that the phrase had a meaning, these were her clothes, owned by her, chosen by her. She did not have many. Even in her small suitcase, most of the clothes were ones the CIA had provided, often ones chosen to accord with Montgomery's standards.

She had not chosen to wear any of them last night; she had not worn any of them today. Last night's black dress had been black, but not a _little _black dress. In fact, when she thought about it, she realized that Jackie had been dressed in a far more daring, far more glamorous outfit than Sarah had been.

"So," Chuck began again, "this guy who taught you about how to dress. Was he French?"

Sarah laughed involuntarily. "No, but he certainly thought he was...Continental."

Chuck smiled but then his expression sobered. "What's wrong with what I am wearing? I hate to admit it, but my sister chose my clothes. I mean, they're mine, so her choice was constrained. But I think she'd be disappointed to know that my appearance disappointed you."

"No, no, Chuck," Sarah responded quickly, "that's not what I meant. You look good. I mean you look okay. It's just that if this was a date, what you are wearing might not be the best choice; I didn't mean you don't look...nice."

"Wow," Chuck said flatly, "damned by faint praise, and made all the fainter by being a double-negative." He smiled a little, but his eyes showed hurt. Sarah wanted to reach out to him, take his hand again. But holding his hand had made this feel like a date, instead of a coaching lesson about dating. He was here for Jackie. He was not here for her. And that was good — because she had no clue how to react if he was. The Farm had taught her nothing about how to respond to a man like Chuck. He bewildered her; he overtaxed her. She had to maintain a distance between them or...else.

"Sorry, Chuck. I wasn't insulting you, or your sister's…" Sarah paused and Chuck supplied the name, _Ellie_, "...or Ellie's taste in your clothes. I just mean that you might want to rethink your choice if...when you have a date with Jackie. Why don't we plan to get together later this week and go shopping? I can help you make some choices, okay? Advise you?"

Chuck glanced down at his shoes, shrugged a shoulder, then gave her a cock-eyed grin. "Okay, that'd be good, I guess. Can we do it tomorrow?"

"No, I need to find a place of my own, so that I can get off Carina's couch...I'm hoping to check out places tomorrow — I expect it will take the whole day and the evening."

"You know," Chuck volunteered, excitement in his voice, "there's an apartment next to mine that is up for sublease. The guy who rents it is a doctor, and he's going to Africa, I think, to work for a while. I can give you the number of the rental office, if you want it. My sister has an apartment there too. She works with him. He's a doctor and so is she. Oh, and so is her boyfriend. I'm surrounded by physicians."

Sarah laughed. "Thanks, that would be good. I hadn't thought about subleasing, but it might be a good compromise. Give me time before I have to commit to anything."

Chuck blinked; the edge of his excitement dulled. "Yeah, um, right. So let me give you the number. I have it in my head." He told it to her. She wrote it down, writing it on the back of the crumpled notes she had made the night before. She looked at them for a second before she returned the paper to her purse.

As she put it away, Chuck asked her a question. "So, how do you know Carina? I asked Morgan, but he didn't know. It turns out he doesn't know much of anything about her. She's pretty much a mystery." He gave Sarah a brief, significant glance. "Did you two go to school together?"

Sarah's throat tightened. She could not reveal anything about Carina — that could be dangerous and it would be overstepping boundaries. But it would also reveal things about herself that she was not prepared for Chuck to know, that she hoped he would never know.

Despite the emotional ups-and-downs, the unfamiliarity of her brief time with Chuck, maybe because of them, she did not want to drive him away. He was not for her but she could have a few days or a few weeks of his company. _I like you, Chuck. I like your company. _

His was a kind of company the Company did not allow her, and of which the revelation of her time in the Company would deprive her, she was sure.

Her mind raced. "Um, no. We met...on vacation." The lie tasted and felt like sand in her mouth. "We were both...on the beach one day and happened to put our umbrellas up next to each other. We hit it off right away. We're different, but I like the difference."

Chuck nodded uncertainly. "You didn't work together? Morgan said he didn't know, but I admit, I was pretty sure that you had."

Sarah covered her discomfort with a light laugh. "You two must have had quite a conversation about us last night."

Chuck bit his lip but neither confirmed nor denied it. "So, you didn't work together? She strikes me as someone who also knows about the sort of stuff you are coaching me on. I mean, I get it, you two are definitely different — but you seem sort of the same too."

Sarah forced a smile she did not feel. "Well, we have been friends for a long time. Maybe friends are like dogs and their owners: they come to resemble each other over time."

Chuck snickered at that and Sarah felt a pulse of pride in having made him laugh. "Maybe, although I have been friends with Morgan forever, and that so that scares me."

She giggled. "If it helps, I'd have to say you two are the exception to the rule."

Chuck mock-wiped his brow. "Whew. That's a relief."

Sarah's smile became genuine. "You are close to him, aren't you?"

"Yeah. Morgan can be...maddening. Now and then his thinking is...ah...pear-shaped, but his heart, his heart is always _heart-shaped_."

Sarah felt a flush of warmth. Her toes curled in her boots. "That's such a nice thing to say, Chuck. I didn't think guys talked that way about each other."

"What? I guess some don't, or they just punch each other's shoulders instead. But Morgan's been through a lot with me, helped me over and over, and I won't pretend I don't love the little bearded guy."

Sarah decided not to ask about what they had been through together. She couldn't hope to keep Chuck away from personal questions if she asked any.

"So, vacation, huh? I never did quite get what your job is...or was. Or where you moved here from."

Sarah took the easy option, hoping it would exhaust the conversation. She started walking toward the exit from the Diamond exhibit. "DC. I moved from DC. I worked in fashion there, and before that, I did some acting." Sarah snuck a look at Chuck. He still looked like Chuck, not a mark. But there had to be some threshold of lies she would cross and that would turn him into her mark. There'd be no coming back from that. For either of them.

"Was the Continental man your acting teacher or was he in fashion."

"He dabbled in fashion, but he was my acting coach."

"Huh. I'm surprised you don't look familiar. I can't imagine you doing anything without being a superstar at it. So, should I know you as an actress or a model?"

"No, I did okay, but my work was all local." She knew how vague that was but she hoped it would suffice.

"Huh." Chuck said no more. They walked through other parts of the museum, taking in various displays.

Chuck stopped asking about her. They talked about other things. They were heading toward the exit when they stopped at another display of a guitar. Chuck looked at it. "That's a nice Telecaster. I have one too, but it isn't a custom shop one like that."

"You play guitar?"

"Yeah, but I'm no guitarist. I play songs I like, noodle around, try to write songs sometimes." He got an odd expression on his face. "I tried to write a song last night. I couldn't sleep."

"Me, either," Sarah blurted out, then shook her head internally. _Shit, Sarah. _

"I bet you had the good sense not to try to write a song, though," Chuck said, shaking his head.

Sarah smiled and could not stop herself from responding. "I got up and turned on the lights. I woke Carina. She accused me of being up late to write poetry."

"You aren't a poet?" Chuck grinned at her.

"No. I was actually making notes for today's lesson. What was your song about?"

Chuck looked at the Telecaster. "A girl. A woman."

_Jackie. _"Did it turn out well?"

Chuck kept his eyes on the guitar. "Don't know yet. I'm still working on the chorus, and I don't have the final verses." He finally looked at her with a nervous grin. "I'm thinking about some do-wops in the bridge."

She laughed. "Maybe you could play it for me, if you finish it."

"I hope so."

Sarah was not sure if he meant he hoped to play it for her or to finish it but she did not ask for clarification.

"So, Sarah, would you like maybe to get some coffee? There's a good shop not far from here. You can tell me more about self-belief, since we've strayed a little from the topic, I guess."

Sarah smiled. "Not really. You've done great since we've been talking. You just need to be sure to talk to Jackie like you are talking to me."

Chuck nodded — again, uncertainly.

They left the museum and started walking along the street. Chuck put his hands back in his pockets, then noticed her notice that he had. He pulled them back out but then his hands seemed fidgety, restless.

The coffee shop turned out to be closer than Sarah expected. They went in and ordered, each ordering an Americano. They got a booth near the window, so that they could look out on the sunny afternoon.

"So what was the name of your acting teacher? Was he famous, like Stanislavsky or Stella Adler?"

Sarah felt her stomach sink. She had hoped this topic was done with, at least for the day. "No, no, nothing like that. He's not someone you would ever have heard of, but he is well known in a...small circle."

"So, you're not really teaching me how to be a self-believer, you're teaching me to _act _like one?"

Sarah giggled. "Fake it 'til you make it."

Chuck laughed too. "How does that go for actors, though? Fake faking it 'til you make faking it?"

Sarah continued to giggle but her merriment left her.

_Fake faking it 'til you make faking it._

That was a sad summary of her life, from her cons with her father to the missions for Graham. She learned how to fake things, faked until she became a real faker. She thought of Cawker, Kansas, and The World's Largest Ball of Twine. She had been a ball of twine gazing upon The Ball of Twine. If anyone ever untwined her, she would simply vanish.

Chuck seemed to sense the downshift in her emotions. "Did I upset you, Sarah? I admit I can't quite...I'm not sure…"

She waved her hand at him. "It's okay, Chuck. I've just been through a lot of changes lately, everything's changing, and I am feeling...unsettled."

He reached across the booth and put his hand softly on her arm. "I'm sorry to hear that. And I want you to know how nice you are, how kind, for being willing to help me out, coach me. You're a good one, Sarah, a wonder."

She caught her breath at his words. She took a sip of her coffee to hide her face. She knew he was absolutely sincere; she knew how completely wrong he was. _Oh, Chuck! _

A few minutes later, she told him she was going to have to leave. She got up and he followed her outside. She hailed a taxi.

"So, you'll call the rental guy at my place?" Chuck asked.

Sarah nodded as the taxi pulled up. "I will. Are you going to be around there tomorrow?"

"No, not unless you come by in the evening. I'll be at work."

"Oh. So, you'll see Jackie tomorrow?"

"I suppose so."

"If she waves again, go and talk to her, Chuck. She waves, she asks you to dance. I saw her face: she was enjoying herself during that dance. Don't chicken out — talk to her." Sarah hated her encouraging words, hated that they were true. He was for Jackie. Jackie was for him. She pounded softly on his chest. "Don't forget, or I'll have to hurt you." She smoothed his shirt with her hand.

Chuck looked at her, raising one eyebrow. "I won't. And I believe you when you say you could hurt me."

Sarah looked at him for a long moment, then she opened the door of the cab and left him standing on the street, waving at her.

She couldn't remember a better or a worse day. And she still had to face the gauntlet of Carina's inevitable questions when she got back to Carina's apartment.

ooOoo

Carina turned out not to be at home. There was a note saying that something had come up. The note was on top of a stack of menus for local restaurants. Sarah ordered from a Chinese place. Dinner came, and she ate it, replaying her conversation with Chuck in her head.

She got up and turned on Carina's stereo. She put the needle down on the Coltrane and Hartman album that had been playing when she first arrived. She sat down, thinking in time to the music, to Hartman's perfect phrasing of _They Say It's Wonderful. _

Chuck was smart, perceptive, intuitive. He saw things, noticed things, felt when things were off. If she was going to keep seeing him, coaching him, she was going to have to do better. She had been off her game: too little sleep, and then Chuck's singing. She had never recovered from it, really. In fact, sitting there in Carina's apartment, she could hear his voice as she had smelled his scent the night before.

She had been taught to fake emotions, to pretend to be interested when she was, in fact, repelled. _Can't I sort of reverse that, pretend to be uninterested when in fact...well, just pretend to be uninterested? Surely, I can._

After dinner, she turned off the music and gave some thought to the next coaching session with Chuck, then checked to see to what stores she might take him. She allowed herself a furtive moment of imagination: maybe she would get a chance to see Chuck in a tux. She still heard Hartman in her head.

Sarah was asleep when Carina finally came home.

ooOoo

The next day, Monday, Sarah started calling to set up appointments to see prospective apartments. Carina had gotten up early and left before Sarah woke up.

She lined up several appointments, including, as her last of the day, the apartment for sublease near Chuck's.

It turned out to be a long, frustrating day. Sarah started it with anticipation but showed up at the final apartment feeling dread. The problem was not that she saw no apartment she could live in, it was that she had trouble imagining herself living in any of them. Her DC apartment, provided by the CIA, had also been furnished and decorated, to the extent that it was decorated, by the CIA. Before that apartment, she had lived mostly in hotels with her father, a few times in rental houses, but never anywhere she expected to stay. She had not expected to stay in the DC apartment, and really had not, except in the sense that it was her mailing address for years.

But, of course, she got almost no mail, so that hardly mattered.

Each new apartment was a provocation, an empty taunt directed her own emptiness, her distance from her own desires and preferences. Did she want paintings or not? If she did, did she want landscapes or abstracts? Did she want a sofa and chairs or some kind of sectional? Did she want the apartment repainted? If so, what color? Did she want a guest room? Who would ever stay in it? Did she want anything? If so, what?

She was lost among the seemingly infinite possibilities and the apparent nullity of her own desires. She could not answer her own questions.

When she showed up at Chuck's apartment complex, she was frazzled and distracted, depressed. The rental manager was waiting for her at the apartment's door. It was near a courtyard with a small central fountain. Surprised, Sarah found that she liked the look of it. The man, a slightly chunky, distracted fellow in his early sixties, opened the door and let her go inside.

"I'll wait for you out here. Ryan, the guy who is subleasing the apartment, intends to leave his furniture, and decorations, and his kitchen stuff, so if you are hoping for a place to move your stuff into, this ain't it."

Sarah nodded. "I don't really have...stuff. I rented a furnished place where I was before."

"Oh, well, okay; so this might be the place for you. Take your time. I'm going to step out and make some phone calls. If you need me, I'll be out by the fountain.

Sarah thanked him and then looked around. The apartment was comfortably furnished and tastefully decorated. Again, Sarah was not sure if the furniture would have been her choice or if the decorations were to her taste. But nothing bothered or offended her. She wandered through the place. It was clean, tidy. A bit masculine, perhaps, but not insistently so. She liked it or thought she did.

She had finished looking at the bedrooms and the bathroom and was in the kitchen. The layout was smart, efficient. She liked the open bar between the kitchen and the living room. She was standing, looking out the window over the kitchen sink, when she heard her name — spoken in a woman's voice.

Sarah whirled like a dervish, her habits again kicking in, her response to surprise the taking of a combat-ready position. But leaning against the doorframe was a woman, unarmed, smiling, and familiar. But Sarah was sure that they had never met.

Then she knew. The woman was familiar because she resembled Chuck.

Ellie.

His sister.

"You _are_ Sarah, right?" The woman was lovely, her smile like her brother's, immediately infectious. Sarah nodded. She relaxed her defensive posture, hoping Ellie had not noticed it.

Ellie had. "Wow, Sarah, I need to take a class with the person who taught you self-defense. I've never seen anyone move so fast, so precisely. It was like ballet — but...edgy. I'm Ellie, by the way, Chuck's sister. He told me you might be by, so I've been on the lookout for you. Keeping the courtyard under surveillance."

Ellie laughed at that and Sarah tried to do so too, but only half-succeeded.

Ellie stepped into the apartment. "Sorry I scared you, but I was eager to meet the mysterious Sarah Walker."

Hearing 'mysterious' after 'surveillance' did not help Sarah's anxiety. "Mysterious? Me? I'm just a girl."

Ellie grinned. "Maybe. But I know someone who does not think you are 'just a girl', but I shouldn't tell secrets out of school. I'm talking about my brother, by the way."

"I gathered. But I'm nothing...special. I'm just trying to help Chuck."

Ellie sat down on the couch, relaxed and comfortable, the opposite of Sarah, who was standing and still mildly panicky.

"So Chuck told me. But he never has asked me to help him get dressed to meet a woman before, so that tells me something." Ellie's smile downturned. "But he also tells me you weren't taken with my suggestions."

Sarah did not know what to say. "No, no, that's not right. He looked...I liked...No, that's not right."

Just as quickly as her smile downturned, Ellie's frown upturned. "Yeah, he told me that too. But I can see this is a fraught topic for both of you." Ellie gave Sarah her own version of Chuck's appraising glance. "I can see why he's so...fraught."

Sarah walked into the living room and sat down in a chair opposite the sofa. "Look, Ellie, I know Chuck's interested in Jackie, I'm just trying to help him. It's something for me to do until I get...settled and start trying to find a new job."

Ellie's brow knit at the mention of Jackie. "So, you met Jackie?"

Sarah nodded once. "Kind of. She was at the place where I met Chuck. We exchanged a few words. I told her he was a good dancer."

Ellie laughed silently. "You two can thank me for that. I made him take a dance class last year, hoping he might both learn to dance and meet someone. I guess I was one-for-two on that."

"He didn't meet anyone?"

"No, Chuck's not been dating...not really, not for a long time. He went out on a few dates I set up — coworkers — but although two of them were really interested, he never went out with any a second time. If I didn't know any better, I'd think he'd become a monk."

"Chuck? But he's such a nice guy. Charming. Smart. He should have someone."

Ellie's appraising stare returned for a moment. "You're preaching to the choir, Sarah. That's what I think too. But Chuck's...complicated. A lot more complicated than he seems. He seems simple, but that's just not true. He just keeps it all bottled up, internal, hidden."

"Like a duck?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, placid and calm above water, but paddling away like crazy beneath it."

Ellie shook her head vigorously. "Yeah! Exactly like that. He was bad enough when he was younger, after mom and dad...Well, anyway, he got worse at college, after things went wrong there."

"He mentioned that to me but he didn't elaborate."

"No, he wouldn't. I really don't know all of it, I think. He told me enough to keep me from pressing but he's never shared it with me. But I guess that's his story, to tell or not as he chooses. But he hasn't chosen to so far. Even Morgan's not clear about it all. I take it you met the Gremlin?"

Sarah smiled. "Yes, I did. He seems like a good friend to Chuck."

"Oh, he is, but he's also the worst sort of enabler. He's the assistant manager at the Burbank Buy More, and he managed to get Chuck to waste a couple of years there with him after college, until Chuck and I came into a little money — a distant relative died and left us a tidy sum — and he took his half and started his software development company. He's done well, but…"

"But what?"

Ellie smoothed the legs of her jeans. She sighed. "I think the college stuff made Chuck mistrust himself. Like a lot of gifted people, he's always been a threat to collapse under the weight of his gifts, under the expectations he has for himself and...others...have for him."

Ellie stopped and put her hand on her mouth. When she removed it, she gave Sarah a slightly horrified look. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't be telling you all of this. If Chuck knows I did…"

"I won't say anything about it, Ellie. I promise. I'm good at keeping secrets."

Ellie cocked her head. "Huh. Maybe that's why Chuck finds you mysterious."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"So, Chuck says you were once an actress and recently worked in fashion?"

Sarah's lies were returning to her, prepared to multiply. "Yes, in a...small way. I was never exactly...successful."

Ellie was obviously tempted to comment on that but she did not. "But you quit and you moved out here?"

"Yes. Work had become...unbearable. I just didn't want to do it anymore. Not a day longer. So I resigned and headed to California."

"What kind of work are you looking for here?"

"I don't know. I studied Political Science in college. But I am willing to do almost anything, as long as it doesn't involve...make-believe. I had a stomach full of that acting and then again in fashion. I want to do something...real. Help people somehow. Feel useful. Feel like a human being."

"Well, maybe Chuck should be coaching you."

"What do you mean?"

"My brother may be the most _human_ human being on the planet. It's what he does. He's _humane _— in the best sense of the term, you know, having the feelings that are best in human beings: tenderness, compassion, kindness, particularly in helping other people who are in distress, or who are weak or helpless or defenseless.

"I've been thinking about that word lately. I've been working on a _bedside manner_ paper I want to publish. Chuck's a reminder to me, and I need him. It's hard to be a doctor and remain humane, to keep in view that you are a person treating a person, not treating a body, not treating a brain. Sometimes I slip into being a wetware mechanic. _Miss Good Scapel_."

Sarah thought about all that. "I imagine there are a lot of jobs that can make a person inhumane, over time, little by little."

_Or just inhuman._

_Little by little._

_Wetwork mechanic. _

_Morticia._

_I speak French._

Ellie nodded. "Yes, I imagine so." Her eyes narrowed but she said nothing — then she stood. She reached out, and Sarah stood up, responded in kind. They shook hands.

"So, what do you think of the apartment? Ryan's remarkably _not_ a slob. And the place is comfortable, homey, in its way." Ellie gave her a generous smile.

"Yes, it is," Sarah agreed, smiling widely herself, gripped both by Ellie's hand and immediate certainty. "I'm going to take it." _This is such a bad idea._

* * *

A/N: Tune in next time as Sarah takes Chuck shopping, and as Sarah has an unplanned, woman-to-woman chat with Jackie. Drop me a line about the story!


	5. Consumer Affairs

A/N: Conversations, confrontations, memories, and chance meetings. Important issues raised to be resolved as we go forward.

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Five: Consumer Affairs

* * *

Sarah finished with the paperwork for the apartment quickly.

Normally, the fact that she was not employed would have been a hurdle, but she had been able to pay for all six months of the sublease at once, and so the question of employment had been moot. Ryan needed to find someone to take the apartment quickly, so the terms were good.

Ellie had vouched for Sarah to Ryan in a quick call, and that put the final touch on the transaction. Sarah walked away from the apartment complex with a signed contract. Ryan would be out of the apartment by Friday morning, and Sarah was due to move in on Saturday.

She drove back to Carina's in an odd, checkered mood: sure she had done the right thing, sure she had done the wrong thing, unsure how she could be sure of both.

She had thought about staying around until Chuck came home — and Ellie had encouraged it — but she decided she was not up to being there when Chuck found out she would be living beside him. She was unsure how he would take the news, and almost any reaction other than indifference would have caused Sarah difficulty.

Actually, indifference would have too. Chuck caused her difficulty.

Carina was home when Sarah arrived. She was sitting at the kitchen table, eating the final bites of a salad. A bowl of salad was on the table, along with a loaf of french bread on a cutting board. A bottle of wine was open.

Carina pointed to the oven. "There's a plate for you in there. Been keeping it warm. Steak and a baked potato."

Sarah put her things down on the couch. "_You _cooked?"

"Why is everything I do a fresh puzzle to you, Walker?"

"Because I have never seen you cook before. Not even fill an ice tray or boil water. Ever. Like I have never known you to read a book."

Carina pulled her mouth to one side of her face. "As I said, everything's changing. I can cook, as a matter of fact. My mom taught me. And, as we have established, I can read — and do."

Sarah grinned, and nodded, a white flag. "Okay. I guess we missed each other last night and again this morning. You were out late to be up so early. _Up early_ — another fresh puzzle."

Carina did not respond. Sarah walked to the oven. She opened it, grabbed a potholder, and took out the warm plate. The food looked good. Sarah had been too frustrated by apartment hunting to eat lunch.

She put the plate on the table and sat down. A place-setting was prepared for her. Carina poured Sarah a glass of wine. "So, Sarah, I saw the classifieds out when I got here. Did you look at places?"

"Actually, yes, I did. And I already signed a contract. I move in on Saturday, so you won't have me couch surfing much longer."

Carina speared a final cherry tomato. She chewed and swallowed, all the while regarding Sarah with open curiosity. "Good, although having you couch surf is no problem." She put down her fork and interlaced her fingers above her plate, then resting her chin on them. "So, did you have Lesson One with your apprentice, yesterday?"

Sarah cut her steak with the steak knife and fork. She kept her eyes on it as if the task were absorbing her.

"Cut the 'I need all my concentration to cut my steak' routine, Sarah. You are practically made of knives, or you once were. Answer my question."

Sarah took a bite of her steak. Carina slid her plate over and resumed her position, her chin propped on her fingers. She raised one eyebrow slowly, like a flag being raised over an outpost.

Sarah swallowed. "That's good, Carina. And, yes, Lesson One is in the books."

"And what did The World's Longest Boy Scout" — Carina paused to smile wickedly — "make of being coached CIA-seduction style?"

Sarah centered her attention on her steak again, cutting another piece. Carina continued to look at her, eyebrow high. Sarah ate another bite then put her knife and fork down. "He doesn't know." She said the words so softly that she almost did not hear them herself.

But somehow Carina did. She dropped her forehead on her interlaced fingers. "Shit, Sarah. So, he has no idea that you were CIA?"

Sarah shook her head.

"And so he knows nothing about Roan Montgomery or about where you've picked up your fund of wisdom about romantic relationships?"

"No, but we really didn't start on anything too...Montgomery. We just talked about the importance of self-belief."

"But you haven't talked to him about his endgame, what he's hoping for?"

"No...but right now I take it that all we are working on is getting him a date with her. I'm going to take him shopping tomorrow afternoon."

"When do you plan to tell him?"

Sarah bit her lip. Then she played a hunch. "Have you told Morgan what _you_ do?"

Carina unlaced her fingers. "No, but I am still doing it. There are restrictions on what I can and can't say."

"I know. But you can say that you work for the government and that your job is classified, right?"

Carina nodded. "Yes, but…"

"But what?"

"I'm trying something different with him…"

"You found a lost volume of _The Kama Sutra_?" Sarah kept a smile off her face.

"Ha. Ha. Funny, Walker. Jesus, you leave the Company and you really do become a comic. No, not a new _position_ — a new _thing_. I like him. I don't know if I like him, you know, that way, but I like him, and I wanted to see if it was possible for me to have a male _friend_."

Sarah had no immediate response to that. It seemed for a second as if Carina had slipped into an unknown tongue. Sarah shook her head a little. "Are you serious? A male friend? So you planning not to sleep with him?"

Carina's expression became almost pained. "I don't know. I'm not planning to sleep with him but I'm not planning not to sleep with him, either. Assuming I got the right number of 'nots' in that sentence. Anyway, I'm not planning one way or the other."

"So what're you doing?"

"Just, you know, _hanging out. _Last night, he and I played video games at his place. Turns out, I really like first-person shooters."

"There's a shocker," Sarah said. "And you two didn't..._do_...anything?"

"I gave him a quick peck on the lips when I left." Carina grew thoughtful. "But I'm not sure the...experiment's...going to have time to work out. I got a DEA call early this morning. It looks like I may be sent on another deep-cover mission any day now. Who knows how long the mission will last." Carina did not seem as excited about a new mission as she normally did.

"What brought this on, Carina? I remember you once lamented that the downside of men being able properly to use their tongues was that it enabled them to speak…You were grousing about a confusion of cunning linguists with..."

"I remember," Carina jumped in, cutting Sarah short. "But we were both a little worse for wine that night as I recall — and you weren't bully on men as a species that night either."

"No," Sarah agreed, a quiet fierceness in her voice, "that was right after we finished that mission in Miami. When that Russian bastard tore off my top."

"Lucky for you I found you. He had enough men there that...things could have gotten…"

"Yeah, I know. And, thank you, again."

Carina was quiet for a minute, then she picked up the wine bottle and refilled her glass. She topped off Sarah's.

"This feels like old times…"

Sarah nodded. "It does. But I don't want to do _old times_, Carina. I'm glad to see you and glad to be here, but I don't want us to be spies together anymore. I just want us to be friends, like...well, like I said at the bar the other night, in the bathroom. I'd like to make new memories — new kinds of memories. New times going forward. Does that make any sense?"

"Well, _I'm_ trying to become friends with a man. _A video-playing, short, bearded man_. Who knows what the future holds? I don't recall you being willing to talk about the future before, except for the future of the mission, or the past really, unless it was our shared past."

"I know. We've been friends a long time to still be so ignorant of one another."

"I guess," Carina sighed. "But I'd like to believe we know each other despite that ignorance, you know?"

"Yeah, I do. And I don't mean we aren't friends. We do know each other. I...um...I realized that I've never asked you about your past because I didn't want you to ask me about mine."

Carina blew out a breath, a half-chuckle. "Ditto."

"We're quite a pair, aren't we?"

"Quite. But you still haven't told me what you are going to do with Chuck. Are you planning to do this coaching thing without telling _him _about your past? Telling him isn't against the rules, you know. You're not an agent any more, not on a mission, not undercover."

Sarah nodded hesitantly. Carina saw it. "Wait, you're _still _undercover, aren't you. You not only didn't tell Chuck you were CIA. You lied to him about your past!"

"Haven't you lied to Morgan?" Sarah asked defensively.

"No, actually, I haven't. I told him last night we'd talk about it soon but that I didn't want to get into it yet."

"And he accepted that?"

"Yes, actually, he did. He did ask me if you and I had worked together. It seems he got that idea from Chuck. I was able to avoid answering that question at all. We got caught up in the game and he forgot to get an answer from me."

"So you haven't lied — but you haven't told Morgan either."

"That's right. But why would you lie, Sarah? Why not just tell Chuck? I thought you didn't want to do old times anymore, but you're acting like you are still an agent, and like Chuck is your mark!"

Sarah reddened. She pushed her plate from her and stood up. "He's not my mark." Her tone was low, intense. But Carina stood to face her. "You may not _want_ him to be your mark, but tell me again how he _isn't _your mark. You have no clue how to be close to a man who is not an agent or a mark, you never have!"

Sarah grabbed her steak knife. Carina leaned toward her, not away from her. "What? Are you going to _serrate _me for telling you the truth? I know the truth isn't your meter, Sarah, but really? _Really?_ You just agreed that we do know each other — so why can't I _tell_ you what I know?"

Sarah dropped the knife and it clattered on her plate. She turned and ran into the bedroom, slamming the door.

A few seconds later, Carina banged on the door. "That's _my_ room. If you insist on sulking, do it on the damn couch."

Sarah opened the door and the two women glared at each other.

Sarah stomped out. Carina stomped in and then she slammed the door.

Sarah went to the couch and sat down. She dropped her head in her hands. _God, we are quite a pair! _

ooOoo

A couple of hours later, Sarah heard Carina's door open.

Sarah was stretched out on the couch, studying the ceiling.

Carina walked to the couch then sat on its back, looking down at Sarah. "I guess what I am doing with Morgan's not _so_ different from what you are doing with Chuck. It's just that you've done something I can't imagine ever doing: quitting. My troubles are the result of my worries about how to combine my DEA future with any other sort of future. But your future is wide open, Sarah, but you can't have it until you figure out how to settle with your past. — Are you planning to ever tell Chuck the truth?"

Sarah did not respond. Carina shook her head slowly. "You were always stubborn. That's a good trait, sometimes, but not always, Sarah." Carina kept her voice soft. "You _like_ him, don't you?"

Sarah finally nodded. "But it doesn't matter, Carina. If he knew the truth about my past, he would never consider any sort of relationship with me — he wouldn't even date me. Ellie, his sister, told me today that he is the most _human_ human being she knows. But I am the most _inhuman_ human being I know."

"Sarah, that's crazy. No one who was...that...would give a shit that they were. You care so much, maybe too much; you always have. I'm not going to debate this with you, but just let me say…Wait, wait, did you just tell me you met Chuck's _sister_?"

Sarah glanced away. Carina went on, her voice growing in intensity. "You _did_. Where, exactly, is this apartment you got today, Sarah Walker?"

Sarah knew when she was beaten. She put her hand on her forehead and answered. "It's next door to Chuck's, near his sister's."

"And that's a good idea..._why_?"

"It isn't. At all. But...I like him...and I want to be near him. I...start to like _me_ when I am around him. And I like his sister. And...and...the apartment is a cheap sublease, for Burbank, and fully furnished."

"Right, no doubt that last bit, the cheap subleased furniture, was the deciding factor. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Good luck. You're going to need it." Carina, laughing softly to herself, walked back to her bedroom and shut the door. But she did not slam it.

Sarah went back to staring at the ceiling.

ooOoo

The next afternoon, Wednesday, Sarah was standing outside _Uniform_, the small, trendy menswear shop she had chosen. She checked her watch. Chuck should arrive soon.

Sarah turned away from the street and looked again at the large window in the front of the store. It looked promising — the display was a blend of classic and contemporary menswear, dressy to casual. A navy suit was at the center of the display, and it struck Sarah as perfect for Chuck. She would be sure he tried it on.

"Sarah!"

Sarah turned to see Chuck get out of a cab. He was wearing a brown t-shirt and jeans, and the same high-top tennis shoes. Sarah had to admit that she liked him just like that — but Roan would not. Sarah remembered clearly what Roan had told the men in her class, and she was prepared to put it to work, to make Chuck irresistible.

Chuck hurried to her, a big, bright grin on his face. Sarah felt her heart leap.

"Hey, neighbor! I can't believe you are going to be living right next to me!"

Sarah smiled atop an exuberant shrug. "I liked the place. And thanks for telling me about it. The sublease was a good choice — leaves my long-term options open."

Chuck nodded but his grin dimmed. "Yeah, that's true. If you don't like the neighbors, you won't be stuck with them for long."

Sarah shoved Chuck playfully. "I'm sure I will like the neighbors."

Chuck laughed. "I can say that the neighbors like you." He gazed at her for a moment, as if waiting for a response, but she continued to smile at him as she had when she shoved him. He cleared his throat. "Ellie likes you. She's excited you're moving in." He lowered his voice. "To tell the truth, she works so much that she doesn't often meet new people. She's hoping that the two of you will become friends."

Sarah's smile grew. "I'd like that, Chuck."

Chuck's brow furrowed. "Say, she said something to me about maybe doing some self-defense training with you. She said that she surprised you and you whipped around, ready to fight, like a superhero."

Sarah did not meet his eyes. She rotated to look into the store window again, but she knew he was gazing at her reflection in the glass, attending to her reaction. "She's exaggerating. I do know how to take care of myself, but I'm no...superhero."

Chuck continued watching her reflection. "Ellie told me you are moving in on Saturday?"

"Yes, I am."

"Well, I won't be working on Saturday. I'd be happy to help you move in."

Sarah thought of her few boxes and one suitcase. "No. Thanks, Chuck, but I'll be able to manage it. No reason for you to give up a Saturday."

"It wouldn't be giving it up. I'd be helping my coach out. I'd like to do it."

"I...I don't have much, Chuck. It's hardly a one-person job, certainly not a two-person job."

"Then I will bring coffee...and maybe...chocolate croissants?"

Sarah looked up at Chuck's reflection. "God, I love chocolate croissants. How did you know."

"I don't see how anyone who can speak French as beautifully as you wouldn't like them."

Sarah faced Chuck. "But I…"

Chuck held up his hands, waist-high, waving them. "None of that false modesty, Miss Walker. I don't believe you."

Sarah decided that it would be better not to argue. "The coffee and croissants...that sounds good, Chuck. We can maybe do some more coaching work."

Chuck nodded. "Um...sure. So, this is the place where I reach sublime heights of sartorial splendor? The name made me think you were going to make me buy some bibbed overalls."

"No, of course not. This is supposed to be a terrific place. We will find something here that will do the trick."

Sarah grabbed the door and opened it. Chuck entered, nodding his thanks, but she could tell that her words had bothered him. She entered the store behind him.

They had barely gotten in the door, Sarah stopping to stand beside Chuck, when a woman came almost running toward them. She was wearing a UPS-brown dress and a long string of white pearls wrapped several times around her neck, like a collar, and chestnut boots with spike heels. Her hair was braided on each side of her head.

"Oh, oh, oh...Welcome, welcome — to _Uniform. _I'm Wednesday. I don't mean I am _today_. I mean I _share a name_ with today. I am Wednesday Carruthers, and I will be helping you."

Chuck got a huge grin on his face but it was clear he was fighting it.

Sarah wasn't sure what he was reacting to but she answered for him. "Hi, Wednesday. I'm Sarah. This is Chuck. We're here to buy him some new clothes."

Wednesday looked Chuck up and down, then down and up, then up and down. Sarah moved so that she was standing between Wednesday and Chuck. "If it's okay with you, we'll look around for a while on our own? Once we have some ideas, we'll let you know."

Wednesday seemed unhappy about the plan but offered only encouragement. "Of course, of course."

She started to turn when Sarah stopped her. "Oh, one thing I know, we need to see the navy suit in the window, if you think you have it in Chuck's size."

Wednesday looked at Chuck again, annoying Sarah. "Yes," Wednesday said, "I think we do." She left.

Sarah looked at Chuck, who was still trying to suppress a laugh. "What's so funny?"

"If I tell you, I'm afraid you'll hurt me." Chuck rubbed his hand over his mouth, bringing himself under control.

Sarah grabbed his arm. "You will tell me before we part company today, Chuck Bartowski."

Chuck only nodded, his grin returning.

They stopped in front of a rack of dress shirts. "By the way," Chuck commented, as he idly picked up the sleeve of one shirt and let it fall. "I talked to Jackie today."

Sarah was out of sorts. Wednesday's visual _inventory_ of Chuck had irked Sarah. But hearing this about Jackie made her grit her teeth. Still, she forced herself to smile through the gritting. _It's for the best, for his good. _"You did? Tell me what happened."

Chuck removed a shirt from the rack, red, and held it out, then held it up to himself. Sarah watched him, waiting for him to answer. He hung the shirt back up and flicked his eyes to her. "Your color, not mine." She realized he was thinking of what she had worn to the museum, and for a moment she forgot Jackie.

"Did you like that blouse?" Sarah said, not bothering to further specify.

"Yes, I did. But today's blue one, those little buttons, I like it to."

Sarah smiled — and then she remembered. _Jackie_. She released her smile. "What about Jackie?"

Chuck watched her change of expression. Then he refocused on the rack, and moved a few more shirts around on the rack, but she could see that his mind was not on them. _His mind is on her, on Jackie. _

"There's a small park near where I work. Sometimes, I take my lunch and go there to eat. I was doing that today when Jackie walked up. She had been passing by, coming back from lunch herself, and saw me. She stopped to apologize for having to leave the bar the other night, and said that the paperwork — some pre-trial stuff, I gathered — turned out to be a nightmare. She had wanted to stop by to talk to me Monday or Tuesday, but she had gotten to work early and left late and, at lunch, they'd eaten take out at their desks…"

Chuck trailed off, shrugged.

"Is that all, Chuck?"

"More or less. We chatted for a minute more." Chuck had moved to a rack of pants and was idly going through them. He glanced at Sarah. "She told me she enjoyed the dance."

_Damn. _"See, Chuck! I told you. You should have asked her out."

"I don't know," he said, returning his attention to the rack. "She was apologizing: she was talking about the past, not the future." Chuck ended the comment by glancing at Sarah again. His eyes sought hers but hers went out-of-focus.

Her argument with Carina came rushing back to her.

_Past._

_Future._

_Pretense._

_Chuck._

She refocused. Chuck was examining pants again.

"Chuck, if she took the time to stop and chat, I doubt that apologizing was the only thing on her mind, although good for her for doing that. That was your moment! You should have spoken."

He shrugged, a hint of annoyance in the shrug. "I don't know," he repeated. "She was apologizing and I didn't want it to seem like I was taking advantage of that, of her feeling sorry for what she had done, to my advantage. I thought it would be better to wait until we met on a more even footing."

Sarah had no response to that. She just looked at Chuck. "That's very thoughtful, Chuck. It hadn't occurred to me. You're right. That wasn't your moment."

It was Wednesday's moment: she arrived with the navy suit. "Here you are...Mister…?"

"Bartowski," Chuck offered as he took the suit. "Thanks."

Wednesday gestured toward the back of the store. "The dressing room is in the rear. When you have it on, just push the button and I can come back and help, take measurements, if necessary." Chuck started in that direction.

Before Sarah could follow, Wednesday spoke to her. "We have coffee and cookies back there, if you'd like something while you wait for your...boyfriend?...to change." Wednesday waited for for Sarah's response. Sarah checked; Chuck was already near the rear of the store.

"Thanks, I'm really looking forward to seeing my _boyfriend _in that suit." Sarah did not have to pretend to a slight breathlessness and she could feel her cheeks warm.

Wednesday moved her eyes from Sarah to Chuck, but did not let them linger. "I'm sure he'll look nice in it." A note of covetousness was in the comment.

Sarah left Wednesday standing.

'_Boyfriend'? Sarah!_

_Wednesday deserved it, fondling Chuck with her eyes like that. Ogling him. _

Sarah did not let herself think more about that. She hurried after Chuck. He had turned and was waiting on her.

ooOoo

Sarah sipped from her cup of coffee, waiting for Chuck to come out of the dressing room. She was chiding herself. She needed to remember. She was with Chuck, but not _with _Chuck.

She was helping him buy clothes _for_ a date, not helping him buy clothes _on_ a date. There was a world of ache in the contrast between those two prepositions.

They were not a couple. They were not going to be a couple.

She could enjoy this for what it was — a chance to help a nice guy, and to enjoy being around him. Nothing more. Nothing.

_More_.

She fought back her desires, shocked by their strength, their clarity, their _nearness, _their availability_. _They drenched her: they were _hers_ — and she desired _more. More_ of this. _More_ time with Chuck. _More_ of Chuck.

Chuck peeked sheepishly out of the dressing room door, looking for and finding Sarah. He looked around to see if anyone else was nearby. No one was. He stepped out tentatively.

Even with his t-shirt on beneath the jacket, even standing in his socks, pants unhemmed, the sight of him drenched Sarah again in desire, a seismic sea swell of desire that crashed over her, swashed around her. "Chuck, Chuck, you...you…" she sputtered, too overwhelmed to manage semantics.

He grinned at her nearly inarticulate response. "Yeah?"

She just nodded, hard. It took a minute, and as he rotated to see himself in front of the mirror, she got out a soft, half-strangulated, "Yeah…"

And then Wednesday was there, tape measure in hand. "Well, well, well, Mr. Bartowski. If you were the _Maypole_, I'd sure be doing the Maypole Dance. Spring has sprung!"

Sarah put her coffee cup down hard, splashing coffee on the counter. She ignored it and quickly crossed to Chuck, standing behind him and making small adjustments to his suit jacket. She positioned herself between Chuck and Wednesday. Sarah looked over Chuck's shoulder into the mirror, seeking out his eyes. "She's right, Chuck. This looks…"

"Fantastic..." Chuck said, two-thirds assertion, one-third question.

"Yes, you do." Chuck's eyes met hers and she dropped her gaze back to the shoulders of the jacket.

"The jacket drapes nicely. It accents your shoulders. What do you think?"

Chuck lifted his arm so that he could catch the price tag attached to the sleeve in his hand. He looked at it, frowned, looked at his reflection, looked at Sarah's reflection, smiled, and announced: "I'll take it."

Wednesday clapped her hands, the sound muffled by the tape measure in one of them. "Good choice. That suit was made for you. Almost…" She held out the tape measure and walked around him. Sarah started to move around him too, to keep herself between them, but she realized that would be too..._obvious? Crazy? _She let Wednesday check Chuck out.

"The jacket's perfect. The pants are right around the waist but we need to mark the hem." She let the tape measure unroll from her hand, holding onto one end. "We just need to work on the inseam."

In her CIA days, Sarah always had a knife at the ready, secreted on her person, producible in a split second. She reached for it and then realized she did not have one. She did not have a gun either. _Damn. Why didn't 'boyfriend' make this woman behave?_ _Just because she's named after hump day…_

Sarah stood right next to Chuck while Wednesday measured his inseam. Chuck seemed not to notice the undercurrents between the women. He seemed surprised by seeing himself in the suit.

"You know, the last time I wore a suit was at the funeral." His face had become somber.

"The funeral?" Sarah asked softly. She noticed Wednesday react, wince, despite kneeling in front of Chuck, tape measure dangling.

"Um...yeah...My parents...they died in a car accident when I was 16. Ellie raised me. I've not worn one since because I didn't want to remember."

Sarah put her hand on his shoulder. "Chuck, you should have told me."

He sighed. "Well, to tell the truth, I hadn't made it some kind of principle, I hadn't...like...said, 'Chuck, never wear a suit again!', I just...haven't. It didn't hit me until just now. It's not a problem, just a thought. Now and then I get reminders that I haven't...entirely...put yesterday in yesterday. I keep forwarding it to today."

_Me too, Chuck. _

"_Understanding is love's other name."_

_Could you, would you, understand, Chuck? Can I share myself with you? How can I ask you to face what I won't face?_

Wednesday stood up. She was in between Chuck and Sarah. She adjusted the lapel of Chuck's jacket. Pulled the sleeves. "Turn around for me slowly. I pinned up the pants legs. Let's see how you look."

Chuck rotated slowly. When his back was turned, Wednesday shot a look over her shoulder at Sarah, mouthing a one-word question: "Boyfriend?" She returned her attention to Chuck and asked him to turn around one more time.

Sarah knew the last rotation was aimed at her, Wednesday's way of putting Sarah on the spit, roasting her.

Wednesday took a piece of paper and a small pencil from her dress pocket and made some notes. "I need your phone number, Mr. Bartowski, so I can call you once the tailoring is finished."

Sarah interjected, "No, no...Use my number. He's busy. My schedule is more open." Sarah rattled off her number and Wednesday, smirking, wrote it down. "Just bring the suit to the front, along with any other items you decide on." She walked toward the front of the store, glancing over her shoulder once more at Chuck and then at Sarah.

Chuck gave Sarah a small smile. He seemed to be recovering from his sad memory. "What shirt do you think I should wear with this?"

"Why don't you go back in and start taking that off, hanging it up. I'll bring you some shirts to try on. I think a blue, but we should try a couple of different shades. Tell me your size."

He did, then huck went back into the dressing room. Sarah went to the section of dress shirts. She picked up one in Chuck's size, light blue. Looking at it, Sarah noticed that it was almost the same shade as the blouse she was wearing, its little buttons.

And then memory claimed her...

"_You lying bitch," Abagor hissed at her as she twisted from his grasp. _

_The Russian was large, powerful, hulking. Several of his henchmen were standing around them in the deserted garage. Sarah could smell the sticky, dark odor of used motor oil mixed with the lingering, dusty odor of disuse. But mostly she could smell Abagor's acidic cologne. She had been smelling it for days, had spent long moments in the bathroom after meetings with him, scrubbing the scent off her, washing her clothes in the sink, just to get rid of the odor. The odor was an olfactory attack, as foul and encroaching as the brute who bathed in it. _

_His massive, hairy hand shot out and clamped on the front of her blue blouse. With a violent yank, he ripped it open. She could hear the sound of the plastic, pearly buttons falling to the floor, scattering. Then she was standing in the midst of the men, clad only in her bra. Abagor smacked his lips — he smacked his goddamn lips — and he took a step toward her, menace undisguised, a desire to humiliate her, not just hurt her…_

"Sarah?"

For a moment, Sarah thought Chuck had found her in the garage. She snapped back to the dressing room.

"Sarah, do you have a shirt for me to try on?"

"Yeah, sorry. Sorry. Just thinking."

She brought the shirt to him. He took it. "Are you okay? You seem upset."

"I'm fine. It's nothing."

He seemed skeptical. "So, you want me to try just this one?"

"Start with it. I'll see if I can find any more good candidates."

He went back into the dressing room. Sarah blew out a long sigh. She was normally good at not remembering. Or, at least, at keeping her memories at the level of descriptions, not relivings. But she had _relived_ that moment. It must have been because of talking about it with Carina, and the match of shades and the similarity of blouses and shirts.

She felt chilled. She tried to ignore it. She found another shirt in a different shade of blue, a bit darker, and she took it back to the dressing room. Chuck stepped out in the first shirt. She liked it but her chilled mood also chilled her reaction. Chuck grabbed the other shirt and went back inside. Sarah sat down. She had begun to recover when he opened the door and emerged in the second shirt. Sarah looked at it. "That's the one, Chuck. That shirt, that suit - you'll make Jackie hot."

Chuck's pleased smile vanished. She saw a flash of surprise, disappointment in his eyes. He went back inside. Sarah was not sure what had happened. Still puzzled, she stood up when he came out. His lips were set in a line. He said nothing to her.

She followed him to the front of the store. The shift in his mood seemed to affect even Wednesday. She dropped the flirty innuendo. Chuck paid for the suit and shirt. Wednesday put the shirt in a bag and told Chuck the suit would likely be ready on Saturday. Chuck nodded, put his wallet away, and headed outside.

Back on the sidewalk, he stopped. Sarah walked around him, stood in front of him, looking up into his eyes. "What's wrong, Chuck?"

"What are we doing here, Sarah?"

"We're working towards getting you a date with Jackie."

His eyes suggested disagreement. But he did not disagree with her; he asked another question: "And why do you think I want to get a date with Jackie?"

Sarah answered, speaking fluent, automatic Farm. "Because you want to sleep with her."

Chuck visibly recoiled. "Shit, Sarah."

He stepped around her and raised his hand, hailing a taxi. She stood frozen, unable to move. A taxi stopped.

Sarah finally moved. "Chuck, what...what did I do?"

He yanked the taxi door open, threw his bag inside. Despite that, when he spoke to her, he kept his tone restrained. "Look, Sarah. We're getting to know each other, but you need to understand something. Yes, _I'm a man_. But if I want to have sex with a woman — and I'm talking real desire here, red-blooded, heated, not something half-assed, lukewarm — if I want to have sex with a woman it is because I want to have sex with _her_, not because I want to have _sex _with her. I want to sleep with a _person_, not a body; I want to sleep with a _lover_, not a buddy.

"And I don't give a shit if that makes me seem stupid or unrealistic or hopelessly romantic...or whatever. That's what I want. I thought I had it once...but never mind.

"If I wanted to sleep with Jackie, it would be because of how I felt about her. If I wanted to date her, it would be because I wanted to get to know her better. _Her_. Anyway," he added, allowing his shoulders to sink, "thanks for your help. Goodbye, Sarah."

And with those words, he got into the cab and shut the door. The taxi pulled away.

Sarah stood lost on the sidewalk.

Carina had tried to warn Sarah but Sarah hadn't believed her. Or maybe she had or had started to, and then that flashback to Abagor had reset her, made her part of Company life again.

Abagor had never cared that she was a person. He only cared that she was a body of a certain type, a certain size, a certain shape, a certain temperature.

Those were the men she had been trained to seduce. Those were the men she knew.

"Hey, was that Chuck Bartowski?"

Sarah spun in the direction of the question to find herself face-to-face with Jackie. She was carrying a couple of bags, the names of boutiques on them.

"Didn't we meet the other night, at The Come-What-May?" Jackie asked. "You were dancing with Chuck. So, that _was_ him."

Sarah nodded mutely, too overcome by Jackie's sorcery-like appearance to know what to say. As her surprise passed, her disappointment with herself and the results of the afternoon took over.

The last person she wanted to talk to was Jackie.

"Yes," Sarah answered finally, 'that was Chuck."

"And you're Sarah, right?"

"Yes, how did you know?"

"Chuck told me who you were at the bar, and then he mentioned you again today when I saw him at lunch."

Sarah was still caught in disappointment, wound in Chuck's final words. And now this.

"Right. He told me you two ran into each other. Almost twice in the same day, I guess."

Jackie tilted her head. "Are you okay? You look upset."

"No, I'm fine. It's just been a long day."

Jackie's head remained tilted for a moment longer. "Say, Sarah, if I may ask...I know this is forward...but are you _dating _Chuck?"

The answer Jackie was hoping for was clear on her face. Sarah didn't need to be a spy..._ex-spy..._to discover it.

Sarah opened her mouth to answer just as Wednesday came out the door of _Uniform._

"Miss, miss, your _boyfriend _forgot his receipt!"

* * *

A/N: Tune in next time for more discussion with Jackie. And other things. (I had originally planned to put the entire Jackie conversation here, but the chapter is long enough.)

Keep sharing thoughts with me if you want me to keep sharing chapters. I'm writing to provoke and understand thought and reaction, not just to accumulate visitors.


	6. Lover's Lane?

A/N: We're now in the thematic middle of our novella. It is, as I said at the beginning, fluff-ish, but we're in for a few difficult moments in these central chapters. Fear not — this shall be no angst-fest! Although this is — sort of — a Halloween chapter.

* * *

** A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Six: Lover's Lane?

* * *

Almost too good to be true  
Who do you? why do you? what do you do?  
While everybody's hiding under covers  
Who's making lover's lane safe again for lovers?

-Elvis Costello, _Clowntime is Over_

* * *

Wednesday waved the receipt at Sarah, waiting for her to take it. Jackie was staring at Sarah, obviously mentally reciting 'boyfriend'. Jackie's earlier cautious smile had fled.

A glacial moment: three women, no words. Finally, Sarah reached out and took the receipt. Wednesday nodded dismissively and returned to _Uniform. _

Jackie's gaze hardened. "'Boyfriend?'"

Sarah tried to think, come up with...something. This was her specialty. _Ex-specialty. _

She saw that the door had closed on Wednesday.

"That...woman...was basically _hitting on_ Chuck, so when she asked if he was my boyfriend, I said he was, just to make her...behave." Sarah put her hands in front of her, turning them palms-out, in a gesture of _what-can-you-do?_

Jackie looked at Sarah's hands for a moment, then her gaze lept back to meet Sarah's. "And Chuck was okay with you doing that?"

"Well, he...didn't know. But I'm sure he wouldn't have minded if he knew — not because I am his girlfriend — but because I'm sure she was making him uncomfortable."

Jackie seemed skeptical. "Chuck? _Chuck Bartowski_?"

Sarah was lost again. "Huh?"

That was all she had.

Jackie smiled, a touch of relief and of superior knowledge in her smile. "Chuck is cute, but he's like that girl in the old remake of _Emma_ — _clueless_, at least where women are concerned.

"I've been trying to get him to just talk to me for weeks, but he wouldn't respond, make the first move, even though I kept inviting him to do it. Every day, I walked _around_ my building and went in the front door instead of the rear door, next to my parking spot, just so I could wave at him, smile at him."

Sarah's heart sounded the alarm, dived, a nuclear submarine under attack.

Plunging.

_"Dive, dive, dive!"_

Plunging.

"So, you're...really interested?"

Jackie smiled her beautiful smile. "Yes, I am. But I wonder if Chuck would've even noticed that...that woman...was flirting with him. I flirted for weeks..."

Sarah's heart settled on the bottom, now shook by depth-charges. "I...I...Chuck noticed. He's just...reticent. We haven't been...friends...long," Sarah offered and saw Jackie's pleased reception, "but I know he went through...a bad experience. He's...gunshy."

Jackie nodded. "So, I should just stop waiting on him and make it clear — clearer — that I am interested, that he doesn't have to worry that I am going to just reject him?"

_Yes, lucky you. _"No, I wouldn't. If you're interested...I'd wait, if I were you. He'll come around. I've been...encouraging him. Maybe it would be best...given what he's gone through...if you let him believe it was his idea. That is — if you are willing to _wait_? It might take a while..."

"Oh, I am. He's great." _Damn. _

"That's my opinion too," Sarah conceded. _He's really great. _

"Not an opinion," Jackie her tone conclusive: "it's a fact."

"How could you know?" Sarah tried to keep too much of an edge from her tone.

Jackie laughed quietly. "Chuck doesn't know it, but the man who owns the building my firm shares with Chuck's software firm is my uncle. He got to know Chuck when Chuck worked out renting the space, and he was really impressed by him.

"I'm not sure I would've noticed Chuck if my uncle hadn't pointed me in Chuck's direction, but I'm glad that he did."

Sarah had no clue what to say to that. She just nodded, trying not to give anything away.

Jackie shifted her bags from one hand to another. "I hate I had to leave the bar the other night. You were right: Chuck's a good dancer. He was working up the courage to ask me out, I'm sure, but then my damn phone rang."

She was running out of oxygen; the LA air had grown thin, stale.

"It's like a rom-com," Sarah said flatly, unable to succeed in tucking away her bottomed-out feelings.

First, Sarah offended Chuck, maybe too much to overcome, then she ended up having..._this conversation. _Now, she was discouraging Jackie from doing exactly what Jackie should do, talk to Chuck and make her interest in him plain.

Not everything Sarah told Jackie was false, true, but Sarah told the truths she told in a misleading way. Chuck might be planning to make the first move but he would not be put off by Jackie doing it.

Sarah was hoping for time. Time to change, time to tell Chuck who she had been.

Jackie was searching for an exit strategy from the conversation; she was shuffling her feet, looking around. "Good to run into you again, Sarah, and thanks for the advice." Jackie walked past Sarah.

Sarah watched her go, envy surfacing, breaking past denial.

_To be normal, to think of Lover's Lane as a path to happiness, not a dark, broken trail, concealing killers, thieves...lechers._

_To understand the difference between desire and lust. _

_Clearly, Chuck takes that to be a difference of kind, not a difference of degree. _

That was a wholly new thought to Sarah, hardly more than a bare form of words. It had no clear translation into Farm English.

It seemed too good to be true. Chuck seemed too good to be true. Jackie seemed..._good enough_..to be true.

_I am not too good to be true. _

_I am too false to be good._

_Liar. _

_The ruins of a woman. _

_What is left to rebuild?_

She hailed a cab.

Unheeded tears coursed down her cheeks as she returned to Carina's.

ooOoo

The apartment was empty.

Sarah walked inside and dropped her apartment key and purse on the coffee table, beside her Porsche's keys. She had not driven for fear that Chuck would see the car and she would have to explain it. But she was delaying the inevitable. He would see it soon — probably Saturday when she moved in.

She plopped down on the couch, then stretched out, finally wiping her now-dry cheeks.

She thought about calling Chuck, apologizing. But how would she explain assuming what she assumed? Assuming it was another act of treating Chuck like a mark. Chuck's offense was, she knew, rooted in his sense of her, of what was going on with her.

Her lies seemed only to half-work with Chuck. He had not believed her about speaking French. He seemed skeptical about much else that she had told him, though he had not called her out on anything. Even her denial she spoke French he had treated as modesty on her part, not as an out-and-out lie. What she knew of his conversations with Morgan and Ellie suggested that he was trying to figure her out. And that he was had been evident enough at moments when she was facing him.

He was smart, empathetic. Dangerous — in a wholly gentle way.

She remembered once finding a magazine at an airport, between missions, and reading about people with high EQ's: _emotional quotients_. She had dismissed the notion as nonsense — and, like IQ's themselves, it was surely pseudo-science, but perhaps it did track something, something Chuck had in spades, if not in quotients.

As a con, then as a spy, Sarah had developed a capacity that mimicked empathy, mimicked EQ. She had learned tells, giveaways, signs associated with states. But she could not see them directly. She knew them by inference, from a distance, as it were. She was very good at it, but when she was around Chuck, the capacity deserted her. She was too awash in her own emotions to do the inferential work needed to identify his.

The longer she was around him the more likely he was to understand her, work her out. He might not be able to discover the details, but he would work out how badly ruined she was.

Sarah heard the lock click, and the apartment door open. "Sarah?"

The sun had set and Sarah had been on the couch for a long time, longer than she realized. The apartment had grown dark. Sarah sat up and clicked on a lamp. "Yeah, Carina, I'm here."

Carina shut the door and scuffed into the room. She put her things on the kitchen table and walked to the armchair. She fell into it more than sat down.

"What is it, Carina?"

Carina chewed the inside of her lower lip, her brow furrowed. "I just did something I have never done. I turned down an assignment, that deep-cover mission."

"Turned it down? They let you?"

"I had a sort of Golden Ticket. I was under for a long time, last time, and things...went sideways, big-time. My boss told me that it was my call when I went under again, if I ever did. I thought I was ready...ready enough...but when he started talking about it, my stomach churned. I told him no."

Carina flicked her eyes up at Sarah and then back down — trying to gauge Sarah's reaction without giving too much away. Sarah knew the trick. "Do you want to talk about it, the mission?"

Carina glanced up again. "No, not really, not right now." She sighed, ran a long-fingered hand through her hair. "This — spying — used to seem like a game to me, winner-take-all, constant competition, mainlining adrenaline, being anyone I wanted. What's that NASCAR line?" She looked at Sarah and Sarah shrugged in ignorance. Carina snapped her fingers. "Oh, I remember, _No Restrictor Plates…_"

Sarah shook her head. "NASCAR, Carina?"

"I slept with a guy a year ago. Had it tattooed on one shoulder. He had 'chip' tattooed on the other shoulder. I pointed out that having the word 'chip' on your shoulder was not the same as having a chip on your shoulder. A logic error." Carina smirked for a second. "I only slept with him that one time."

Her somber expression returned. She looked at Sarah and this time held Sarah's gaze. "That's always been the difference between us, Sarah, and I know it."

"Guys with NASCAR tattoos?"

"No," Carina chuckled without losing her seriousness, "for me this is...was..._is_ a game — for you it never was. When we worked together, I kept trying to make you see it as a game, kept trying to compete with you. Not really because I wanted to win — well, maybe a little — but because I wanted you to _play_, to see it as I saw it. See it. But the joke's on me. Right now, anyway, I see it as you saw it. And I guess I'm understanding you better. I don't know how or why you started with the CIA, but I can do math, like I can read and cook, and I know you must have been young, really young, when you started."

Sarah kept quiet through all of Carina's speech, and she intended to refuse to respond to the implicit question embedded in the end of what Carina said.

But she didn't. "Graham recruited me, drafted me, during my senior year of high school. I was at the Farm instead of my graduation."

Sarah had never said those words to anyone. No one knew them but Graham himself. Carina's eyes opened wide. "Good God, girl. How?"

Sarah gestured bitterly, waving her hands. "He's Langston Graham. Manipulation and secrets are his stock-in-trade."

Carina nodded. "He's a professional _bastard_."

"No argument from me. He was beginning to turn me into his...Enforcer. That's part of why I quit."

"Part?"

Sarah volunteered no more about quitting, but after a silence, she returned to Carina's earlier comment.

"You're right, Carina. It wasn't ever a game for me. But it wasn't ever...real, either." Sarah forced herself to keep talking. "I never knowingly chose the life and so it never seemed like it was me who was living it. It seemed like...like the Agency had deprived me of...agency. I was a spook haunting a spook's life, doubly fake. I kept telling myself that if I just...averted my gaze...never squared up to what I was doing...then it really wasn't me doing it. And then a mission came along where I couldn't avert my gaze, and it finished me."

Neither woman said anything for a while. Carina got up and turned on another lamp, chasing more shadows away.

Sarah cleared her throat. "I've never asked you, Carina, but how do you do them, the seduction missions? How do you keep them from...bothering you? From affecting the way you see yourself, men?"

Carina sat back down. "Who said they don't bother me, didn't affect me? Why do you think I turn it all into a game? And not just mission seductions — my entire...romantic...life. It's all become a game. If it became serious…"

Carina stood and walked to the window, looking out into the dusk. "If it wasn't a game…" Carina did not finish the sentence the second time either. After a long, heavy silence, she told Sarah she was going to bed early and went to her room.

Sarah sat in the lamplight for a while, trying to think honestly, to square up before herself.

ooOoo

Sarah picked up her phone and dialed Chuck's number. She was worried that he would not answer. But he did.

"Hey, Sarah." His voice sounded cool, distant, but not hostile.

"Chuck, I wanted to call and apologize. I shouldn't have said...assumed…"

"Look, Sarah," Chuck said, his voice warming by a degree or two, "I know…"

"No, Chuck, I was wrong. There are...reasons why...But they don't excuse me. If you still want me to help you, coach you, I will. I'd like to. I've been...having a good time."

He was quiet for a moment. "As long as we're clear that my interest in the woman I am interested in is not...what you said."

"We're clear, Chuck. I'm clear." Sarah thought about confessing her run-in with Jackie, then thought maybe she could do better. "I think it's time we started talking about how to talk to a woman — a woman you are interested in in the way you are interested in the women who interest you..."

Chuck laughed. "Well, I definitely could use help there, with the talking part. I get going and then sort of lose my way, and then I can't quite remember where I started or where I intended to go and then...I get lost and...Anyway, I have this spiraling problem. — But I am going to be busy with work for the rest of the week. Why don't we do that on Saturday, after I help you move in."

"So you're still willing to do that? Help me move in? I could deduct that from your coaching fee," she added with a soft, breathy laugh.

"No, a deal's a deal. I'm helping because I...want to. Yes, all is forgiven and forgotten, Coach." His voice was much warmer, closer. Sarah wanted to keep him on the phone. She felt so much better. _Forgiven and forgotten. _Chuck went on. "See you Saturday morning, Sarah, with coffee and croissants…"

"Sounds good, Chuck. Bye." She ended the call but held her phone in her hand as if it were Chuck's hand. It was a while before she put it down.

Sarah wondered if she should knock on Carina's door, talk some more, maybe tell her about what happened with Chuck, Jackie.

But they had talked more, to more purpose, in the last couple of days than in the entire time they had known each other. At least Sarah had an idea now of why Carina had seemed odd.

She decided to let Carina set the pace.

Maybe they could help each other in ways neither expected when Sarah texted that she was on her way to LA.

And maybe she could tell Chuck about her past. Not all at once, dumping it on him from a bucket, but in a more measured way, from an eyedropper, drop-by-drop. After all, the lies she had told him about her past — acting, fashion — were not fabrications from whole cloth. They contained an element of truth.

_Maybe I am not _all _ruination. _

ooOoo

Sarah spent much of the next day shopping for herself.

For herself.

That morning, while Carina slept, Sarah took all the clothes she had that the CIA had purchased, and she put them in a trash bag.

She carried it down and put it in her Porsche. She drove to a homeless shelter and put the bag in a dropbox there.

She dallied at a diner until the clothing shops opened, then she went to buy herself clothes at shops nearby. She wanted to find out what _Sarah _wanted to wear.

It was a strange experience, buying clothes that would not appear on a mission, buying them with her own money. She did her best to shut up Roan Montgomery's voice in her head, its insistence that she buy splashy colors and revealing cuts.

Sarah listened to herself instead, even though she had to strain to hear her own voice.

She tried items on until she found ones that she felt at home in, relaxed in, ones that felt like her. She rejected anything that felt like a costume, dress-up, like she was Montgomery's life-size Barbie.

She found a number of things she liked, in which she liked herself.

Before finishing, she bought a gold necklace with a star pendant, a small gold diver's watch, and a pair of earrings, small golden stars.

She bought the jewelry at one of the boutiques from which Jackie had carried a bag, although the one Sarah visited was across town from the one Jackie must have visited. But the thought of Jackie did not sink her more buoyant mood.

When she returned to the apartment in the afternoon, there was a note from Carina saying that she had gone to an appointment and that she was going to a dumpling place with Morgan later. She left the name of the restaurant and the address, but Sarah felt calm and relaxed. She decided not to be the third wheel.

She put together a salad from items in Carina's fridge, put it in a bowl, and she sat down in the armchair and turned on Carina's television. She checked the paper on the kitchen table and found a TV guide page. She ran her fingers along, hoping to find a movie.

_The Addams Family. _A channel was playing two episodes of the show back-to-back and the first was about to start. Sarah found the channel and settled in, bowl in one hand, fork in the other.

The finger-snaps started, and then the strange music.

As soon as the Addams were shown, Sarah giggled.

_Morticia. This is what Chuck was thinking about. _

The episode turned out to be, or so the guide said, a Halloween episode. Sarah sat and watched as the mail arrived, bringing Gomez a new knife.

She sat up a bit, and then a little girl in pigtails and a dark dress with a white collar, Gomez's daughter, asked if she could use the knife to play _Autopsy. _

And suddenly Sarah knew why Chuck had been laughing at _Uniform. Wednesday._

As she watched, it struck Sarah that the show was a comic allegory of her own life. She had been raised by her father, and then trained by the CIA, not _spooky-inverted_ (although the term made her chuckle, given what she had said to Carina about being a spook the night before) but _normal-inverted_.

When Wednesday and Pugsley, her brother, modeled their costumes — they were dressed as a normal man and woman — Gomez and Morticia were apprehensive, worried that the children were too startling, too scary. Sarah began to chuckle at that, and then to laugh.

And laugh.

She was not laughing at what she had done as a CIA agent, but she was laughing _at_ the CIA, at the whole bizarre, _human-inverted_ craziness of it, at Langston Graham's banal pieties and Roan Montgomery's heartless seductions.

She had never laughed at it before, and the laughter was...liberating. She finished her salad watching the second episode.

_They're creepy and they're kooky  
__Mysterious and spooky  
__They're all together ooky  
__The Addams family_

_Ooky._

ooOoo

At about 3 am, Sarah sat bolt-upright up on the couch.

_Jackie. _

Somehow, in Sarah's sleep, her spy instincts had awakened.

Jackie. Her sorcery-like appearances. She showed up at the bar. She showed up when Chuck was eating lunch. She showed up when he was shopping with Sarah.

_Jackie. _

Sarah got up and looked in the phone book. Neither of the boutiques from which Jackie carried a bag had a location within walking distance of _Uniform. _

Something was off, something was going on. With Jackie.

_But what? _

It took Sarah a long time to get back to sleep, but she intended to figure out what was going on, starting the first thing in the morning.

* * *

A/N: Thoughts?


	7. Birdhouse In Your Soul

A/N: The last chapter ended the first half of our story, and we now begin the second half. Stakeouts and sunflowers.

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Seven: Birdhouse in Your Soul

* * *

Sarah slowed her Porsche, backing her foot off the gas pedal. She was on her way to her new apartment, on her way to meet Chuck. It would be the first time she would see him since the unhappy scene outside _Uniform. _They had talked and everything seemed fine — but Sarah wanted to see it in his eyes not just hear it in his voice.

ooOoo

As she drove, she considered her inconclusive Friday.

When she woke up that morning, her suspicion of Jackie was still there, but it had become less sure. She knew — she had finally admitted it to herself in the Friday morning light — that she was envious. Deep down, seriously envious. Sarah worried that her envy was funding her suspicion.

But that did not stop her from doing as she planned, from trying to figure out if something, and if something, what, was going on. She got up and took a quick shower, dressed, left a note to Carina explaining that she expected to be gone most of the day, and she drove to the diner she had visited the morning before.

She took a booth near the back, in a corner. She did not want to revert to being a spy, but she was not going wholly to discount her instincts. Chuck was too important. Even if Sarah could not have him, she was not going to let anyone harm him, not in any way.

She sat down and pulled out her phone. Making sure no one was around, she dialed a number she had not expected ever to dial again. The number was a direct line to Irene Maxwell, a long-time CIA analyst and a woman who had worked with Sarah often, assigned to her by Graham. Although it would have been a stretch to say they were friends, they did like each other. Irene was not only good at her job but she was kind to Sarah, seemed to have some sense of how unhappy Sarah really was.

"Irene." The answer was typical. Brief and intense.

"Hey, it's Sarah."

A second of silence passed. "I thought you were done. _Hoped_ so."

"I am." One thing Sarah liked about Irene, particularly when they worked together. She was not long-winded.

"So?"

"So, I need you to poke around for me."

"I take it this is non-Company."

"Call it personal."

"Should I ask?"

"No."

"Fine."

"A woman, late twenties. Tall, dark-haired. She works as a paralegal for a firm in LA, _Boucher, Bakker, and Chandler. _Don't know how long she has been there, but it hasn't been long. Her first name is Jackie. —Is that enough?"

An audible smirk. "Yes."

"She claims she has an uncle who owns the building that houses the firm. Can you check on that, on him?"

"Am I looking for anything in particular?"

"No, just any red flag."

"Mark — or a competitor?"

"Call her the latter."

"She's already lost, then."

"Let's hope so. Thanks, Irene." Sarah started to hang up.

"Sarah?"

"Yes?"

"I went out and had a drink when I heard about your resignation. Toasted you."

Sarah warmed, colored. She looked around again to make sure no one in the diner was watching or listening. "Thank you," she said softly, allowing her gratitude into her voice.

Another moment of silence. "We do some good here. You did some good here, Sarah, more than most. For real people, with faces and names and caught in bad situations, not just for red-white-and-blue abstractions. Don't forget that. I make myself rehearse a list of real goods I contribute to at each day's end, even if it's damned short. My daily affirmation. Otherwise, the Company would eat me alive." She paused, added with emphasis. "_We who are lifers salute you_."

Sarah shook her head though Irene could not see. "Salute? Why?"

"You got out, got out with a chance to have a life...For most of us, this place has no exit."

"Well, Irene, I'm in LA now. Come visit me, please, if you start to feel...pasty. We'll go to the beach and bathe day long in the sun."

"God, God, that sounds nice. Maybe I will. Talk to you soon. I'm swamped today; it may be tomorrow before I can get back to you."

"No problem. Thanks!" Sarah ended the call, strangely moved. A waitress came by and Sarah ordered a cup of coffee.

She checked her new watch, smiling at herself as she did so. Her watch. Chosen by her. Fashionable but reliable. Jackie should be showing up at work soon. Chuck too. Sarah planned to be there.

She found a place to park her car. She was in a parking lot across the street from the building Jackie and Chuck worked in. From there, she could see the parking lot in the rear of the building, presumably the one for employees, and the one in the front. Sarah settled in, a cup of to-go coffee in her hand.

It was about 9:45 am and Sarah was keeping watch on the lots, when she saw the back door of the building open. A janitor came out, short, blonde — and then Sarah recognized him, no not him, her. It was the woman who had been at the bar with Jackie. Sarah had not interacted with her and had sort of lost track of her. _Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet. _The woman was pushing a deep cart piled high with full trash bags. She pushed the cart to the dumpster in the corner of the lot and began to transfer the trash bags into it.

At about that time, an older Mercedes convertible, silver, pulled into the lot. It was Jackie. _Nice car. Very nice for a paralegal. _Jackie parked. After putting up the top, she got out and started around the building. She stopped and chatted with the blonde woman, the chat brief but friendly, and then she went on around the building. Sarah realized that Chuck had arrived. He must have come by cab or bus, because he was on foot. He saw Jackie talking to the janitor. Both women saw him and both waved. He waved back, but seemed to quicken his pace, heading into the building through the front entrance. The two women smiled at each other, and then Jackie hurried on around the building, apparently giving chase to Chuck.

Sarah desperately wanted to see what happened next, but she has no line of sight to the front doors, given where she had parked. The janitor finished and pushed the cart back into the building.

Sarah got out of her car and quickly crossed the street. Slowing her pace, she walked to Jackie's car, slowing more, so that she could get a good look at the interior. Nothing was there, other than a jewel case for a CD: Michael Penn's _March. _Sarah circled the car, double-checking the license. At least it was not a vanity plate. She made sure she memorized the number correctly, and she headed toward the rear door.

It was unlocked. Sarah stepped inside.

A sign on the wall had arrows pointing in opposite directions, one toward the law firm, the other toward Chuck's. Until that moment, Sarah had not known the name of Chuck's firm. _Ex-AV Software Solutions. _Sarah stood and chuckled. The name seemed exactly like one Chuck would have chosen, unpredictable but fated. She started down the hallway to the law firm. She entered the door, realizing that the law firm occupied most of the building. Chuck's part was much smaller.

She entered a lawyerly environment. A long reception desk was staffed by an attractive young woman with fiery red hair. The firm's logo adorned the wall behind her. The room was sunlit, but the heavy dark wood of the desk and furniture seemed to weight the sunlight, to ballast it. The woman looked up at Sarah. "May I help you?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, I'm sorry, I was looking for _Ex-AV._"

The woman smiled. "Oh, yes, Mister Chuck. He's just down the hallway the other direction." Sarah nodded, noticing that the first room down the central hallway bore Jackie's name. _Jackie Munro. _Sarah thanked the woman and left, hurrying down the hallway and back out the door she entered.

Sarah got in her car and drove to the nearest library. Using the computer, she hunted for any mention of Chuck Bartowski or _Ex-AV_. She would leave Jackie to Irene — but Sarah had not wanted anyone at the CIA to have Chuck's name, to have him appear on a search run there.

Sarah found almost nothing. There was an article in an LA business magazine, and an interview with Chuck not long after his firm opened. The article featured an amazing picture of Chuck, talking, a smile on his face, caught mid-gesture. The picture melted Sarah, and she forgot what she was doing as she gazed at it.

She tore her gaze from the photograph finally and read the article. It was of a standard type, questions in boldface, followed by Chuck's answers in regular typeface.

Chuck's exuberance was on display in his words as it was in his image. Sarah was impressed and amused.

But one part of the article caught her attention.

_"So, Chuck, are you only designing game software?"_

_"No, although that will be the main thing, the thing that keeps Ex-AV's doors open, I plan to do some other work, work on the edges, you might say, of Artificial Intelligence."_

_"Would you care to provide more details?"_

_"No, not really. Not that it's, you know, top secret. Let's just say it is a bit of a family project. I'm protective of it the way you might be of a family recipe. My dad was a software engineer, and he got me interested, first in programming generally, and then later in AI questions. I'm following out some of his work, trying to finish it."_

_"Well, good luck with that and with the business more generally. May I ask you one more question?"_

_"Sure."_

_"Ex-AV?"_

_"Oh, that. That's a reminder to me that the high school AV cart is part of the journey, not the destination."_

_"Thanks, Chuck."_

Sarah shook her head, but she knew she had found a possible piece of the puzzle, assuming there was a puzzle. What had Chuck been working on? Was he still working on it? Was it finished?

She printed a copy of the article and paid extra to get a color copy of the photograph of Chuck.

She drove back to her earlier observation post in the parking lot across the street from Chuck's building. A few minutes later, Sarah saw Chuck leave the building, appearing near the front and walking down the street.

A few minutes after that, Jackie came out the back of the building, and stood there, near the door, apparently waiting on someone or something. The door opened and the blonde janitor stepped out. She handed Jackie a manilla envelope, then went back inside. Jackie put the envelope in her large designer purse. She walked to her car, unlocked it, got in and drove away. Sarah pulled into the sparse traffic behind her, two cars back.

Jackie drove for a few blocks, then pulled into the parking lot of an Italian restaurant. Sarah imitated her, passing behind Jackie's car and into a spot in the corner. Jackie got out of the car, her purse over her shoulder, and went inside. Sarah waited for a moment, hoping Jackie would have had long enough to be seated, and took out a pair of sunglasses and pulled her hair back into a quick, long ponytail. She got out and walked to the front of the restaurant. She stood there for a moment until a group of women came up, talking with each other about work. Sarah slipped in behind them, close enough to look like she was with them.

The host looked up and the woman at the head of the group held up five fingers. He looked and clearly counted six. Sarah held her breath, but she saw him count out six menus. She stepped between two of the women in the rear of the group, using them to shield herself but able to see between them. Jackie was seated at a table, alone, the manilla envelope on the table beside her. Sarah left the group when the host turned to lead them to their table, and she quickly went out the door.

She went back to her car to sit and wait. Various people entered and Sarah watched them all. After about forty minutes, a man who entered after Jackie, middle-aged and nicely dressed, came back out of the restaurant, a manilla envelope under his tucked under his arm. He got in a black Cadillac and left. Sarah noted the license number.

Just as his car left the lot, Jackie exited the restaurant, putting something in her wallet and dropping it into her purse. She got in her car and left.

Sarah did not follow. She made herself sit still and think. Everything she had seen, everything that made her suspicious, was purely circumstantial.

The day's events were odd, witnessed, as Sarah had witnessed them, externally. But it was possible that there was an innocent explanation for it all, or even several innocent explanations because what seemed to Sarah like the unfolding of one interconnected series of events could be a mere succession of unconnected events.

She could not tell Chuck any of this until she knew what Jackie was doing. Until she knew if Jackie was doing anything. If Sarah accused Jackie and was mistaken, that would end things with Chuck. The coaching needed to continue.

ooOoo

Sarah started the car and left the restaurant.

Not long afterward, she walked through the doors of the Burbank Buy More. She walked along the path of sale items toward a desk over which hung a sign: _Nerd Herd_. Morgan was standing underneath it, concentrating on a phone disassembled on the desk.

He looked up and saw Sarah and his concentrating-look broke into a smile. "Hey, Sarah. You just missed Carina. She came by and we had lunch at Lou's Deli." He gestured out the doors. "Were you looking for her?"

"No, Morgan, I was looking for you, as a matter of fact." Sarah returned his smile. "I assume you know that I am helping Chuck, working as his dating coach?"

Morgan's smile got more complicated. "Um, yeah, I guess you could say that I know that."

Sarah let the oddity of Morgan's phrasing pass. "Good. I am hoping to get to know a bit more about Jackie and I thought maybe you could help me."

Morgan shrugged and his smile became disappointed. "I'll try, but most of what I know about her I know from when Chuck used to...from when Chuck talks about her."

"Do you know the name of her friend, the one who was at _The Come-What-May?_"

Morgan held up his hand, just a smidgen higher than his own head. "Oh, about _this_ tall?"

"Yes."

"And she had on a TMBG t-shirt?"

"What?"

"Sorry, how _acronym-inal_ of me. _They Might Be Giants_. The band."

"Right…" Sarah said uncertainly.

"She was wearing a shirt with a line from a song of theirs."

Morgan started singing, his voice not nearly as nice as Chuck's. Still, he sang with gusto.

_I'm your only friend  
__I'm not your only friend  
__But I'm a little glowing friend  
__But really I'm not actually your friend  
__But I am_

_Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch  
__Who watches over you  
__Make a little birdhouse in your soul  
__Not to put too fine a point on it  
__Say I'm the only bee in your bonnet  
__Make a little birdhouse in your soul..._

As Morgan sang, other Buy More employees gathered round.

When he finished, they applauded. She heard one, older than the rest, pudgy, bewildered-looking, and world-weary, say as he glanced at his dark-haired friend: "See, there's no reason to be afraid. _You _have the voice of an angel, Lester." They walked away.

Morgan was grinning and bowing.

"Thanks, Morgan," Sarah said, laughing at his antics, "but do you know her name?"

"Maddy, I think. Chuck's mentioned her. She works in the building. Custodial. She and Jackie are friends."

"Has Maddy worked there long?"

"Don't know. That's not the only place she works. There's not enough to that building to keep a custodian busy all the time. She works there in the morning and then in another building in the afternoon. And...that's all I know, all Chuck told me. Is that any help?"

"Yes, thanks. What was Carina up to after she left? I missed her this morning. Up early."

Morgan made a face. "My sympathies. She said she had a meeting. I'd tell you more, but I may know less about Carina than I do about Maddy." He gave Sarah a significant look, one of entreaty.

Sarah reached out and patted his hand, resting on the Nerd Herd desk. "She's...um...private. But I can tell you that she counts you a friend."

Morgan's back straightened. "Really? That's good. Because I have no idea why a woman like that would be spending time playing video games or eating sub sandwiches with a man like me."

"Do you need to have an idea, Morgan?"

He gave Sarah a surprised look. "No, I guess not."

Sarah leaned in and whispered. "Sometimes, the universe just gives you a gift. It would be bad form to look for a price tag."

Morgan nodded. An odd expression ran across his face and he leaned toward her. "So, you believe the universe is in the gift-giving business?"

Sarah's words came home, applicable to her as well as to Morgan, she realized. With a tincture of wonder in her whisper, she responded. "I guess I do. Sometimes. — See you later, Morgan."

"Later," Morgan responded, chuckling. Sarah left the store.

She realized that there was a Large Mart next door, so she went in and spent some time shopping for her new apartment, buying towels and washcloths for the bathroom, and similar items for the kitchen.

After she got back to Carina's, she ate a sandwich, then cleaned the kitchen and dusted and straightened in the living room.

She felt strangely relaxed, despite being concerned about what was going on with Jackie. Sarah was almost certain that if anything was really going on, Chuck seemed to be in no immediate danger.

Sarah sat down on the couch and did something she could not remember doing. She let her mind relax, allowed her thoughts to...wander. She sat, gazing abstractedly at the wall, thinking everything and nothing all at the same time. She took a deep breath, surprised to find how deep it was.

She got up and got the copy of Chuck's picture. She reclined on the couch and looked at it, tracing her finger along his smile.

She smiled back at him, then she put the copy on the coffee table and she fell asleep.

She slept through the afternoon, through the evening, and on into the night, not waking until early Saturday morning. A blanket was covering her, presumably a night-time kindness of Carina's.

ooOoo

Sarah walked to her apartment. She stopped. The door was open. She walked on, cautious. Then she saw Chuck step out and look toward the parking lot, saw him see her.

He smiled, making her light-headed, even after all her sleep. She waved at him, pleased to find him there but unsure of his purpose.

He waved at her, rocking on his feet, unable to contain himself. Sarah had a box in her hands, so she could not wave back. He ran to her and grabbed the box.

"No, Chuck, I can do it."

"Oh, I know that, I just wanted to help." He turned, and even with the box in his hands, he managed almost to run toward the door. Sarah had to skip to catch up.

As soon as she followed him through the door, she smelled coffee and baked goods — croissants. Two cups of coffee and a puffy mountain of croissants were positioned on the table. But in the center of the table was a bouquet of small sunflowers, standing in a beautiful crystal vase. Chuck put down the box then gestured toward the table with both hands. "Welcome home, Sarah."

Words in emotional moments were almost impossible for Sarah. Or they had been. But she managed to get out: "Thank you."

She wanted to kiss him so much that her lips ached with it. But she made herself do nothing more than reach out and squeeze his hand. He squeezed hers back.

"It'll only take us one more trip, Chuck. Then we can have our coffee and croissants. He let go of her hand and started back to her car. She followed him, trying to rein herself in.

They finished with one more trip, although it meant Chuck was balancing boxes like a circus performer. Chuck did not mention the paucity of her belongings or the fanciness of her car. He had whistled appreciatively when he saw the Porsche. Once everything was inside, stacked up, they sat down to finish their coffee and begin the croissants.

Sarah could feel Chuck's gaze on her; as always, he was trying to bring her into focus. She wiped her mouth with a napkin. "Thanks again, Chuck, for helping me, and thanks especially for breakfast and the beautiful flowers."

He grinned. "The sunflowers just felt right."

"They were. They are. You need to keep using that intuition when you buy a woman flowers. You might want to take some to Jackie if...when you two go out."

Chuck glanced away from her, swallowing visibly.

"What is it, Chuck?"

"Jackie, she asked me out yesterday afternoon. She just walked into my office and asked me out."

Disappointment and alarm, mixed together, filled Sarah. She made herself smile. "That's great!" _I thought I had persuaded her to wait. Why didn't she? _

Chuck's gaze was intent, intense. He watched her closely as he replied. "Yeah, yeah, I guess, although I didn't actually say _yes. _She wanted to spend today together, but I told her I had already made plans. So, _Rain Check —_ I guess."

"Still, Chuck, that's what you wanted. She asked! And you should have said _yes. _This, my moving, was no big deal. I've been trying to help you get ready for a date, after all."

Chuck twisted his mouth down to the side, his eyes following. "Well, I didn't want to back out when I told you I would be here...and I feel like I still need some more coaching. I'm...I'm still worried that I won't know how to act on our date, what to do or say." He glanced away from her.

Sarah nodded once. "About that, Chuck: can we talk for a minute?"

Chuck's expression became worried. "Sure. Sure."

Sarah got up and negotiated around the boxes. She sat down on the couch and patted it for Chuck to sit down too. He did.

Sarah took a drink of her coffee, steadying herself. Her heart was pummelling her ribs. She sighed, trying to focus on Chuck, not herself. "Chuck, I apologize again for what I said at _Uniform._"

Chuck made a dismissive motion with his hand but Sarah shook her head. "No, Chuck, I need to say this to you in person. You see, my...history, my interactions...with men have not all been particularly positive, and you might say that I have a..._cynical_ view of romantic relationships." _A truth, one sad truth at a time_. "But I don't have a cynical view of you, and I shouldn't have said what I said. It's just that hearing a man say what you said to me — that's new. I'm still trying to understand it."

"What can I tell you?" Chuck asked patiently.

"Tell me more about what you want from a relationship, if you don't mind. It'll help me help you." _I need to understand._

Chuck put his coffee on the end table, then rotated on the couch, one leg bent upon it, so he could face her, his ears red. "I'm not sure I know where to start. I feel all...self-conscious now."

"Tell me what your endgame is, Chuck. If you're interested in a woman and start dating her, what are you hoping for?"

Chuck picked at imaginary lint on the couch's back, focused on it, not Sarah. "I'm hoping for...a deep, single love. I mean, of course, I don't know, when I am first dating a woman, if she's a real candidate for that. Or if she wants that too. But she has to seem like a candidate. Otherwise, there'd be nothing romantic between us, even if," — another glance at Sarah — "I've made that mistake before, thinking that the woman wanted that too." He stopped, regrouped. "But that's what I am hoping for, and if I realize I can't have it with a woman, then I won't keep seeing her, not that way; it wouldn't be fair — to her or to me."

Sarah sat in silence, ingathering Chuck's words. It took her a minute to speak. "Do you think that's really _possible_, a deep, single love?"

"Yeah," he nodded emphatically, "I do. But I don't mean anything _fairy tale _by that. Love requires struggle, effort, willingness to suffer. I don't want a deep, single love because it will make everything magically perfect: I want it because I want to be there for someone when things aren't perfect, and want someone who wants to be there for me at the same time."

Sarah bit her lip, still thinking. "But _a deep, single love_ — as you call it — do you think that's normal for people?" Sarah could hear Roan Montgomery's scornful laughter in her head: _deep, single love, Ha!_

Chuck exhaled a soft, breathy chuckle. "It depends on what you mean by 'normal'. Look, I'm no otherworldly dreamer who doesn't realize what people — lots of men, lots of women, too — are like, what they want. I know. You know too, I gather. So, if you mean, do I think it's _statistically_ normal, the answer is _Hell, no. _

"But I do think it's normal in the other sense, in the sense that it is a _norm, _a standard, of human life. It is what we have when we are at our best, fulfilled." His gaze had become introspective; he refocused on her. "Standards matter, norms in this sense, matter. To discard them can save you from failure or disappointment, but only at the cost of success, fulfillment."

Sarah risked another question. "And you thought you had that once — a deep, single love, fulfillment?"

"Yeah, in college…" He trailed off, his voice thickening.

"We don't have to talk about it, Chuck."

His eyes were soft and complex simultaneously. "I don't talk about it. But, yeah, in college, at Stanford, I thought I had it. I met this woman — Jill — and she seemed perfect. Smart, funny, and attractive. We met at the end of sophomore year. We were in a British Lit class together. We got paired together to do an in-class presentation on Dickens' _Tale of Two Cities._" Chuck laughed at the memory. "And so began the best of times and the worst of times. We fell for each other during our work on the presentation. After it was done, we were a couple. We saw each other as much as we could during the summer — she was from near LA — and were inseparable during junior year. The next summer, we started talking about life after college, about a life together."

He paused. "Or I did. I was the only one really talking about it. I was clueless. Looking back, there were signs...I was _college _for her but not _life, _you know? She wasn't really interested in shaping her future so I fit into it."

Chuck got up and looked out the still-open door, gestured outside. "It was right around this time of the year — almost Thanksgiving — when it happened. I went to her dorm room, the door was unlocked, and I went inside and found her...you know, with another guy.

"Turned out, she'd been sleeping with him since the summer. And I still believe she left the door open on purpose. She was willing for me to witness that but not willing to just talk to me, break it off. I'll never understand that. What I saw, it broke me.

"The next couple of weeks were a nightmare sequence. Fights, accusations, rationalizations...anger and hurt. She blamed it all on me. 'You got serious too fast', 'You want too much'." He turned from the door back to Sarah. "I suppose those charges probably seem unsurprising, after what I just told you."

"No, Chuck," Sarah responded, hurting for him, "no. I can't imagine you weren't forthright about your...hopes. She should have told you if she didn't share them. And to break up with you like that. That's just...well, I don't have any polite word for that."

"The worst thing was that she let me go on so long, believing we had a future together, knowing that I was planning one. I shaped my future so that she fit into it, and when she left, I was left with a future with a...Jill-shaped _hole_ in it, and I lost the will to reshape it. So I just lived in that holey future for a few years — and that was a way of living in the past." His tone turned bitter. "I was like a guy who plans a party, puts up the decorations, puts out the food, and then when no one comes, I just keep living among pointless party favors.

"Miss Havisham…" Sarah said the name aloud without intending to. "We read that in high school."

"Right. A lot like Miss Havisham. You could call my little tale _The Crushing of Great Expectations. _So, for a long time, I tried to live without expectations, without hopes. I put one foot in front of the other but hardly looked where I was going or checked to see if I was making progress toward...anything. I didn't look forward or backward. I just stared at my Chucks." That was what he was doing as he finished speaking. He was staring down at his feet.

"I know what you mean."

He looked up. "I'm sorry, Sarah."

"Don't be. It's…" She left her thought unfinished. Chuck sat back down and sipped his coffee.

"Since then, I've not been able to date, not really. Any woman I met had to fit into that hole in my future, but of course, none did. And then I saw Jackie and realized that somewhere along the line, I had moved out of the party favors. I could start over. And lately, I've become convinced of it. I'm ready to move on, start over."

_With Jackie, right?. But what does she want with you? _"Well, if that's true, then you just need to keep that in mind when you go out with Jackie."

"Right," Chuck said, "with Jackie. So, you think I should go out with her?"

_No, but it is what you want, isn't it? And, unless Irene figures this out from DC, I need to figure out what Jackie is up to, if she's up to anything. _

Before Sarah could answer, Chuck's phone rang. "Hey," he said to Sarah, "I'm sorry, I need to take this. A Japanese company is interested in some software I've been working on, and this is their guy, calling me. Sorry."

"It's okay, Chuck." He walked out of the apartment, answering the phone as he went.

Sarah followed and stood in her doorway, watching Chuck. He stopped in front of the fountain and began talking.

"Hey, Sarah!"

Sarah looked the other way and saw Ellie. Ellie had seen Sarah staring at Chuck.

"Hi, Ellie!"

Ellie had a bag of groceries in one hand, car keys in the other. "So, Sarah, all moved in?"

"Yes...the boxes are inside, at any rate."

"That's progress."

Sarah stepped aside and Ellie entered. She put her groceries down on the table, and Sarah saw Ellie note the food, the flowers.

"Chuck's been at work, I see." Ellie left it ambiguous whether she was talking about the items on the table or the stack of boxes.

"Yes, he's been a big help."

"I bet. He hasn't been like this since...since Christmas when he was a boy."

"He's excited. Jackie asked him out."

Ellie nodded. "He told me. That was yesterday. Do you like the sunflowers?"

"I do. A lot. It was so nice to find them here when I came in. Much better than a cactus.'

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud."

Ellie dug into her bag of groceries and came out with a bottle of wine. "A housewarming gift for you."

Sarah took it. "Thanks, Ellie. That's really kind. You and Chuck have made this all feel...special."

"Good. What is my brother doing out there?"

"A phone call about work, about software, I think. From Japan."

Ellie grinned. "Ooh, the top-secret project. Chuck hasn't said much about it, but it sounds like he's about to make a lot of money.

"What's the project?"

I don't know, exactly," Ellie said, "Chuck will never say except to mention archly that it has something to do with our dad's work. Dad was a computer guy, too."

"Is it a game?"

"Maybe. But I am guessing it isn't. I'm not sure." Ellie shook her head, changing subjects. "Did the computer guy tell you he turned down Jackie's suggestion for a date today?"

"Yes, and I scolded him." Sarah made herself sound disappointed. "After all, that's the point of what we are doing."

"What is?"

"Getting Chuck dating."

"You're doing a better job at that than you seem to think, Sarah."

"But he turned down her suggestion because he told me he would help me move in today."

"And so he did," Ellie said, gazing at Sarah. "He even told her what his plans were."

"Why would he do that? She's going to get the wrong idea."

"A lot of that going around…"

"Ellie!" Chuck said cheerfully, entering Sarah's apartment to find his sister. He waved his phone. "The Japanese company. They're going to buy my software. Contracts will be in Monday or Tuesday, and then I'll send them the full program with all the updates."

Sarah smiled as Chuck turned to her. "That's great!"

He grabbed her and pulled her into a massive hug. She could smell him again. She allowed herself to hug him back. When the hug ended, they looked at each other for a moment. Chuck stepped to Ellie and hugged her.

Sarah watched them, her heart full, warm. No cold accompaniment, just warmth.

A new apartment, new clothes, new friends.

New.

Future.

Not old.

Past.

She needed to let go of her past, and the future she saw for herself for so long, a future with a bullet hole, a future decorated with funeral flowers.

She needed to let that future go; it was her past in disguise.

A deep, single love?

Chuck.

The problem was that the man she wanted — _yes, the man I want, yes_ — was going to date the wrong woman, and Sarah was helping.

For the first time, Sarah suspected — and owned the suspicion — that maybe, just maybe, Chuck Bartowski was for her, and she was for him.

She needed to understand what Jackie was doing and needed to tell Chuck what she, Sarah, had done.

Sarah arrived at her new apartment light but she was still carrying so much baggage.

* * *

A/N: Thoughts?


	8. A Walk in the Park

A/N: Move-in Day continues.

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Eight: A Walk in the Park

* * *

Chuck and Ellie had stayed for a while, helping Sarah settle in. At one point, Chuck went next door to his place and returned with an MP3 player filled with songs for Sarah. He showed her how to use it with Ryan's stereo.

Ellie left, going to her apartment to do some cleaning before an evening shift at the hospital. Chuck lingered, seemingly reluctant to leave.

He was sitting on the couch and Sarah was putting some things away in the kitchen. "So," he began, his tone delicate, careful. "You said you have a cynical view of relationships. Doesn't that sort of _disqualify_ you as a dating coach?"

Sarah finished folding her new dishtowels. _Tell him a little of the truth. At least head in that direction. _"It may. I'm beginning to worry it does. Not that I haven't been on a lot of dates." _Cover dates, about as close to real dates as plastic flowers are to real flowers. _She looked at the vase of smiling sunflowers. "I guess that sounds bad…'a lot of dates'."

Chuck shrugged. "It's not a surprise. You're a...lovely woman."

"Thanks, Chuck," Sarah said, flushed with warmth, "but the problem was that those dates were always more a part of my...work than they were my...personal life. I'm not sure I had...have...had a personal life, really. There was just work. And the dates weren't shaped by my...well, they had the shape of work. And most of the men I dated were...not so nice."

Chuck was listening closely. "So, you dated them...to _see and be seen_, because they would help your acting career, your fashion career? Sort of like Hollywood publicity marriages?" He was trying to work it out.

Sarah shook her head. "No, that's...not quite it, although there's truth in it. But...that makes me sound more...mercenary than I was. It's...hard to explain. It starts, it really started...when I was a girl, _a little girl_…" Chuck's leaned forward perceptibly, puzzled, listening even more closely.

_Go ahead, Sarah! Tell him. Tell him about your dad. Just start at the beginning. 'Once upon a sad time…' A little at a time. He's worth the risk. You're worth the risk._

A knock.

Knock. Knock.

Sarah turned to look at the door, as did Chuck, each pulled up from the deeps of the conversation.

Chuck stood up. "That's next door...it's _me_." He went to the door. As he stepped out, Sarah heard him say, surprised: "Jackie?"

"Chuck! I hope you don't mind me stopping by. I was in the neighborhood and hoping you might be done with Sarah and be free to do something with me."

"Um...Well, yes, Sarah's gotten moved in, but…"

Sarah had reached her door. She looked out to see Jackie standing at Chuck's door.

Jackie was carrying a picnic basket. She had on a red flannel shirt and jeans, low boots, her hair swept into a messy bun — and somehow the casual look heightened her attractiveness. She was smiling brightly at Chuck, although the smile dimmed a few watts when Sarah appeared. Jackie held the picnic basket up. "I was going to go spend some time outside and I wanted to see if you would like to come too."

Sarah stood in the puddle of her liquid heart. _No. Not now! Not when the words were...coming. _She saw Chuck glance at her.

"Thanks so much for all your help, Chuck. But I've got it now. You should go, enjoy this beautiful fall day." _Get her out of here before I unbox my knives. _

Chuck looked lost, flustered. "Are you sure? I can stay and help some more." Sarah saw Jackie's smile dim further. Sarah wanted Chuck to stay but this was the charade she was caught in and she couldn't reveal it there, then, in front of Jackie. That would be to forfeit Chuck altogether. And she needed to know what Jackie was really doing.

"I'm sure. Go. I'll just be here, unboxing."

Chuck stood for a moment, his gaze focused on Sarah. Finally, he shrugged. "Okay, if we're done…" He turned to Jackie. "I need to go inside and grab my wallet and stuff. You want to come in for a minute?"

Jackie smiled and nodded. Chuck stepped past her and opened the door, swinging it in but then standing back so Jackie could go in first. "Welcome," he said as Jackie went inside. He took another look at Sarah and then followed Jackie into his apartment.

Sarah's hands were fisting and unfisting. That Jackie had been invited into Chuck's apartment, gone into his apartment, first, before Sarah, galled Sarah bitterly. She made herself go inside and she quickly gathered her purse and keys.

She was listening closely. She heard the muffled sound of Jackie's laugh through the wall between their apartments. She heard it again. Fighting back anger, jealousy, she made herself sit down, focus. Then she got up and got one of her knife sheaths from the bottom of a box, bent down and strapped it around her ankle, beneath her pants leg. She retrieved her gun from the same box, loaded and checked it, and put it in her purse.

More muffled laughter. Chuck's too, this time. Sarah made herself control her breathing. Finally, she heard Chuck's door open and close. After waiting for a couple of minutes, Sarah left her apartment. She saw Chuck shut the trunk on Jackie's silver Mercedes and get into the passenger seat.

_Clever, clever girl, carrying that picnic basket to Chuck's door, not leaving it in the car. Great damn prop. Hard to turn it down. And the farm girl clothes too. Clever. _

_Poor Chuck — from clever Farmgirl to clever farm girl._

Sarah got in her Porsche and fell into traffic a few cars behind the Mercedes.

ooOoo

As Sarah drove, she chewed on her bottom lip. She was not a spy anymore. But she couldn't risk letting Chuck go on this...date...with Jackie...alone. The timing of the phone call from Japan...

Again, it did not prove anything, but it all seemed too closely-knit, too patterned, to be mere chance, coincidence.

Jackie drove to Echo Park Lake. She parked the car and got out, all smiles. Sarah whipped into a spot at a distance from them. Chuck got out and walked to the back of the car, a distracted look on his face. Jackie opened the trunk and Chuck got the picnic basket. Jackie reached in and produced a blanket.

Sarah blinked.

Jackie pointed in a direction and Chuck nodded. They started that way, and Jackie slipped her hands around Chuck's arm as they walked. Chuck looked at Jackie and she smiled. He smiled back after a moment.

Sarah opened the Porsche's glove box. There was a plain black baseball cap in it. Sarah put it on, collecting as much of her hair beneath it as she could, and she then put on her sunglasses. She popped the trunk and grabbed a grey windbreaker she kept there, donned it. She grabbed her purse, locked the car, and started after Jackie and Chuck.

She found them spreading the blanket on the grass. The spot was near a tree but not in the shade; the day was a cool-ish, LA fall day. After they sat, Jackie moved the basket from between them, where Chuck had stationed it, and she scooted over nearer to Chuck, almost shoulder to shoulder. She was talking, all smiles, and Chuck was listening, nodding. Then they were both facing away from her. Sarah sat down at a picnic table and watched.

Conversation continued. Jackie touched Chuck at every available opportunity. The touches did not linger — not on Chuck — but they lingered on Sarah's nerves. She felt sour, jangly, frustrated.

Jackie was in Sarah's place.

She sat and watched. Slowly, she saw Chuck's posture relax. Jackie's touches did start to linger on Chuck, not invasive but insistent.

Jackie opened the wicker basket and took out two plastic wine glasses. She gave them to Chuck and she took out a bottle of wine. She poured them each a little in a glass. She put the bottle away quickly, looking around, then took out a long, shallow plastic container. Sandwiches. Crusts removed, sliced small. _Domestic. Shit. _She gave one to Chuck and began to nibble on one herself. Chuck ate his and drank his wine. Jackie offered him more wine, another sandwich, but he shook his head.

They sat for a while, gazing at the water. They fell into a serious conversation and Sarah's curiosity began to intensify. Sarah got up and made her way to the tree next to Jackie and Chuck. She leaned against it as if she were just loitering, enjoying the early afternoon. But she could now hear the conversation.

"I hope I haven't made you uncomfortable, Chuck," Jackie was saying, concern in her voice. "I know that asking you out, and especially showing up uninvited today, was...erm...forward. But I was worried that if I didn't act soon, my chance might slip by me."

"Chance?" Chuck sounded perplexed.

"Well, yes...The other night at the bar, the other day at _Uniform_…"

"Wait, Jackie, you weren't there."

"Actually, I just missed you. I was there...shopping and I saw you climb into a cab but I couldn't get to you before the cab left. I did talk to Sarah, though."

"You talked to Sarah?"

"Yes, it was...kind of weird actually. We were standing there when a woman in a brown dress came running out of the store. You forgot your receipt."

"I did?"

"Yes, and the woman…"

"Wednesday."

"Yes, that was the day."

"No, that was...is...her name."

"Like…Pugsley's sister?"

_Damn it, _Sarah thought.

Chuck laughed. "Yeah, exactly like that. But what happened after that?"

"Wednesday referred to you as Sarah's _boyfriend._"

There was a pause and Sarah hated that she could not see them.

"Her _boyfriend_? Why? I don't think...Maybe she just assumed..."

"No," Jackie broke in, "Sarah told Wednesday that."

"That I am...was...her boyfriend?"

"Yes, I guess Sarah thought the woman was bothering you, you know, hitting on you, and she said it to make her stop."

"Really? I never noticed her hitting on me."

Sarah shook her head; Jackie giggled. "That's what I thought. I even told Sarah that you probably hadn't noticed."

"So, you two had a conversation?"

"A bit of one. Sarah seemed...upset, rattled. And we don't really know each other."

"What did you talk about?"

Another pause.

"I asked her about the boyfriend business, but she told me the story, insisted that there was nothing between you. But she did tell me I should wait if I wanted to ask you out. She said she thought you wanted to be the one to make the first move. I was going to do as she advised, but then I saw you yesterday and...I couldn't wait. Like I said, I didn't want to miss my chance."

"I don't get it. How would you miss your chance?"

A third pause.

"You like her, Chuck." Jackie's tone was carefully even, neutral.

"Yes...We're...friends."

"No, Chuck, that's not what I mean. I can see that you are almost...a goner. If I don't take my chance, there may be no chance to take."

"I don't know what to say, Jackie," Chuck said softly. "But you should know, Sarah doesn't like me...like that. She's made it clear." Chuck's voice grew hoarse. "So, no matter what I may feel...it doesn't matter. She doesn't feel anything...like that." Chuck cleared his throat. "You'll need to be patient with me. I do like you, Jackie."

Sarah felt like she was being slowly strangled. Chuck hadn't said it in so many words, but he had feelings for her. And then it hit her: he had fallen for her, fallen for her at the bar that first night. Since that night, he had been careful not to say it, and careful not to commit himself about Jackie. Ellie and Morgan — they _knew_. They had hinted, and broadly.

As she stood there behind the tree at Echo Park Lake, conducting surveillance, Sarah cursed herself for a fool. _Spy instincts? What kind of spy am I? An ex-spy. _She thought of _Ex-AV_ and wanted to laugh and cry both.

Chuck had spoken again. "What else did you and Sarah talk about?"

Jackie laughed lightly. "Oh, nothing else. That was enough. And, yes, Chuck. Yes!"

Chuck sounded distracted. "_Yes, _what?"

"I'll be patient. I already have been, Chuck. I wanted you to ask me out. I've been waving at you for weeks and weeks. And now we're here together, on this beautiful day."

"It is beautiful," Chuck observed without matching Jackie's enthusiasm.

"So, what have you been working on so hard, Chuck? You've kept a lot of long hours at the office. Maddy told me she's even seen you there after hours."

Sarah tensed.

"Right. I have been busy, although I haven't been as preoccupied in the last week or so. I basically finished it all the other night, the night when I danced...with you at the bar. I agreed to go out with Morgan because I was sort of...celebrating. He didn't know. I hadn't told anyone — not until just now I guess. I was celebrating undercover." Chuck cleared his throat again. "It's been a big project, a long project, and now it's finished. It's time for me to contemplate the next phase of my life."

"That's what I'm doing, Chuck, contemplating the next phase...of my life...Anyway, Congratulations! That's huge. So, what is the project?"

Sarah grew doubly, three times tense.

"It's hard to explain. Lots of technical stuff. But it's something that should be a help to lots of people, as long as it gets handled right, distributed right."

"We can treat today as a celebration, Chuck; I'd like that, to celebrate with you. I wish I'd known the other night when we danced."

"I had kinda forgotten about it by that point…"

"That's sweet, Chuck."

He harrumphed — but good-naturedly. "Sweet?"

"Yes, sweet."

"Now I feel like I'm eight."

Jackie laughed brightly. "No, you aren't eight, Chuck. I just mean that you are a good guy. I've had it with bad guys."

"Bad guys? You mean...like..._not so nice _guys?"

"Yeah," Jackie breathed out. She did not elaborate.

"Huh," Chuck said but it was not a question, just a comment.

"So," Jackie began, "Sarah's going to be your neighbor. How is that going to work?" She tried to keep the question conversational but failed. An edge crept into her voice.

"I'm not sure. We're friends, and I can live with that. My sister, Ellie, likes her a lot, so I'm hoping they'll be friends. Ellie's been short on female friends."

"I'd like to meet her, Ellie..." Jackie reported in a leading tone.

"She's great. Yeah, at some point, you need to meet her."

"You want to pack this up and maybe take a walk around, Chuck?"

"Sure."

Sarah peeked around the tree.

Jackie was sitting closer to Chuck, not an inch between them although they weren't in contact. She was closing the lid on the picnic basket. Chuck stood up and Jackie reached out her hand; he helped her to stand.

Sarah let them pass, circling the tree as they did so to make sure it stayed between them. They walked away, Chuck taking the picnic basket from Jackie so that he could carry it instead. He had the folded blanket under his other arm.

Sarah thought of him taking her box from her earlier that morning and she hung her head.

Her phone rang. She checked it. Irene.

"Sarah here, Irene."

"Hey, Sarah, sorry, it took me a while to find the time to run a search and cover my tracks."

"I understand, and I appreciate the discretion."

"My default."

"Right. And so, Jackie?"

"Found her, ran her, ran her through everything. She's as spotless as a newborn. I found one moving violation — a failure to stop — otherwise, nothing…" _Failure to stop. Figures. I tried to get her to brake and she wouldn't. Damn it._

Sarah was walking at a distance behind Jackie and Chuck. Jackie had reached out to touch Chuck's arm, and was pointing to a group of kids playing _Tag. _The two stopped to watch the kids go.

"So, no red flag?"

"No flags. Nary a one, Sarah. However…"

"Yes?"

"Her uncle is another story. His name is Vic — Viktor — Pavlov."

"Wait, like the salivating-dog-_Pavlov_?"

"Ding-dong. Quick response."

"Funny, Irene."

"Hey, you know the Company, a laugh riot. Same name, not the same man, of course."

"So, he's not a nice guy?"

"No, he's a not-so-nice guy. Never convicted of any major crimes but suspected for many. Excellent lawyer. A guy named Chandler."

"Like the firm Jackie works at?"

"The very Chandler. Pavlov has ties to the Russian mob here and to some very bad news Russian oligarchs back in the mother country. He owns the building, and a number of other buildings."

"Say, does he happen to own a custodial business?"

Sarah heard Irene's keyboard clacking. As she listened, Sarah saw Jackie and Chuck laughing at two kids, one, _It, _evidently, chasing the other in circles around them.

"Yes, Sarah, he does. _Sparkles, Inc. _Stupid name. It'll take me a few minutes to find out much about them."

"Don't worry about it, yet, Irene. I have enough. So, Jackie, has she been married? Any personal information?"

"Never married. Engaged once. An announcement in the _LA Times, _but it never happened, as far as I can tell. She's pretty. I'm looking at the engagement photo."

"Yes, she is," Sarah growled, watching Jackie as she smiled and gestured, walking alongside Chuck.

Irene laughed. "She graduated from Dartmouth four years ago. Media Studies and Pre-Law major. Graduated with honors. Smart and pretty. If she's up to no good, she's damn good at it."

"Thanks, Irene."

"Sarah?"

"Yes?"

"_You're_ damn good."

"At what?"

"Not _at_ anything. You're just damn good."

"Thanks again, Irene."

"My pleasure."

Sarah ended the call.

Jackie and Chuck were on the move again. Sarah followed at a distance. They walked in a circle and ended up back at the parking lot. Chuck put the basket and blanket into the trunk. A moment later, the Mercedes headed back the way it had come.

Sarah followed.

Jackie parked her car. Sarah parked hers. She could not tell much about what was happening in the Mercedes. But after a minute, Chuck got out of the car. He stood on the sidewalk and waved at Jackie as she drove away. Sarah saw him turn and gaze toward his apartment, Sarah's apartment. He turned and looked at the Mercedes as it disappeared into traffic.

His shoulders slumped and he trudged toward his apartment. A minute later he was inside.

Sarah sat in the Porsche. She had screwed everything up.

_Catch-22. _The lies were tightening around her, a noose.

She looked up as she banged the steering wheel in frustration. She saw Carina walking out of Ellie's apartment. The two seemed to be engrossed in conversation.

_That can't be good._

Sarah jumped out of her car.

* * *

A/N: Moving on into the story. Thoughts?

Today's my birthday. Happy Birthday to me! Love to hear from you.


	9. Goner

A/N: Another chapter of our little fluff-_ish_ story.

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Nine: Goner

* * *

Sarah walked quickly toward Carina and Ellie. Carina was facing away from Sarah, Ellie was facing Sarah — but looking at Carina. Chuck's door was closed, Sarah noticed as she went by. _Thank God! _She was almost to Carina before Ellie noticed her.

"Well, speak of the devil," Ellie laughed, "and she appears!"

Carina spun in place, and her face slackened into inexpression as she did. _Oh, no. _

"We were just talking about you," Ellie continued redundantly. "We were wondering if you and Chuck had gone somewhere together — if you were _coaching _him…"

The effects of the day rolled over Sarah, her Sisyphean rock-life crushing her, and rolling past her, and gaining speed downhill. She spoke out of her frustration and disappointment: "I wasn't coaching Chuck. He doesn't need a coach. _Jackie_ showed up and he left with her."

"Jackie?" Ellie asked.

"The dancing queen?" Carina asked at the same time.

"Both," Sarah huffed — and then she caught herself and discovered her own facial expression, horrified to realize that her frustration and disappointment were etched there. She imitated Carina and slacken her features. One of Carina's eyebrows rose.

"Wait, wait," Ellie said, holding up a hand, a traffic cop stopping traffic, "my brother, Chuck, left you to go off with...Jackie?" Ellie sounded puzzled — and pissed.

Carina's other eyebrow rose.

Sarah realized that her vocal tone and facial expression had created confusion. _Shit. _"No, Ellie, he did go off with her but I...I _told_ him to go."

"_You_...A white flag.._.again_?" Carina's eyebrows stayed at full mast as she asked.

Ellie glanced at Carina, considering Carina's words, then shifted her glance back to Sarah.

"Where did they go?" Ellie asked, her eyes on Sarah's face. Sarah saw Carina's eyes drop to Sarah's hand, her dangling Porsche keys. _Damn. _Sarah tucked the keys into the pocket of her windbreaker.

"I don't know," Sarah lied. "Jackie had a picnic basket, and she mentioned something about spending time outside.

"And where have you been?" Carina's eyes traveled up, stopping on Sarah's windbreaker, her sunglasses, her black baseball cap. _I forgot to take them off. _A glint of mischief showed in Carina's eyes. "And why are you dressed like _a spy_?"

Sarah froze. Ellie looked at Sarah, cocking her head to the side, clearly taken by Carina's description. "Yeah, Sarah, you are kind of _incognito…_like a spy on a TV show."

A grin ghosted across Carina's face as she waited for Sarah's reply.

Chuck's door opened. Sarah turned, all three women facing him. He was standing in his doorway, feet bare. He had changed into an old t-shirt that had _The New Pornographers _across the front, with _Challengers _in smaller script, and faded blue jeans.

He had a piece of notebook paper in one hand. "Hey, Carina!" He waved the paper at her and then noticed that he had. He dropped his hand.

He stepped out and joined them, all of them now standing along one side of the fountain not far from Ellie's door.

Sarah saw Chuck sneak a glance at her, his eyes frowning. "What's up?"

Ellie answered after the three women stood silent for a moment, the silence of each different from that of the other two. "Carina came by...looking for Sarah. I saw her at Sarah's door and introduced myself. We've been chatting. She's Sarah's old friend — and Morgan's new friend." Ellie's eyes deliberately widened at Chuck, a sibling conversation-in-a-look. Sarah saw Chuck's quick grin in response.

"Yeah, right," Chuck nodded. He glanced down at his hand again, the notebook paper. He handed it to Sarah. "I forgot to give you a track list for the MP3. Here it is, along with the names of the albums the songs are from."

Sarah took the paper and glanced at it, a list in Chuck's small, neat hand. She did not read it; she lifted her eyes to Chuck's, dismayed to find them no longer soft, open. Looking into them hurt her, their wall-like opacity. She could not hold his eyes when they were like that. Dropping hers to his shirt, she asked, "Who were the old ones?"

Chuck looked down at his own shirt. "On, no old ones. No new ones, either. It's a band. In fact, the title song of this album is on the list." He gestured at the paper. Sarah looked at it again, reading some of the initial listings. "Chuck, aren't these the jazz songs the band at _The Come-What-May_ played?"

He nodded. "Um...yeah…"

"You gave the list a name? _We're All Light_?"

Sarah heard Carina chuckle but Sarah kept her eyes on Chuck. "That's an XTC song I thought you might really like. It's the last one." He did not sound like himself. His characteristic enthusiasm was missing, gone.

She folded the paper carefully and put it in her pants pocket.

He seemed to notice her clothes-change for the first time. "You've changed." He distractedly gestured at himself. "Me too."

Ellie rushed into the awkwardness. "So, Sarah, do you need any more help?"

"No, thanks, Ellie," Sarah said, glad to turn from the brother to the sister. "I unboxed...some essentials. The rest can wait. I do need to see about a bed. Ryan's got moved into storage and I didn't really think about getting one. I guess I'm going to be couch surfing still, only now at home."

"Chuck could help you with the bed," Ellie offered. Carina snickered.

Sarah stabbed Carina, a dagger-glare. Just as Sarah started to respond, Chuck did, instead.

"I don't think Sarah needs...wants my help. She's...got it under control."

Sarah wanted to hang her head. "No, no, Chuck, I'd be glad for some help."

Before Chuck could agree or disagree, Ellie agreed for him. "That's great. Go with Sarah, Chuck, help her find a bed."

Sarah saw Chuck scowl at Ellie. Ellie scowled back.

"Awww, just say _yes_, Chuck," Carina added, a Mona Lisa smile on her face. "Sarah can try a few beds on and you can tell her which one you like her in best."

Sarah felt herself blush and she watched Chuck do so.

"Take the Mustang, Chuck," Ellie said, loudly, as if she were trying to drown the echo of Carina's roguish comment. Ellie did not give Chuck a chance to respond. She dashed inside and back out, tossing the keys to Chuck.

He tried to catch them but was too surprised, too slow. They hit his hand and bounced to the ground at Sarah's feet. Chuck bent down to pick them up at the same instant Sarah did, and they bumped their heads, hard. Sarah fell back onto her bottom, grabbing her head with both hands. "Ow!"

Chuck stumbled toward her a step, one hand on his head, the other still reaching for the keys. He grabbed them, then stood, bent, rubbing his forehead. He looked stunned.

Sarah apologized just as Chuck did. She reached out for him to help her up. He stopped rubbing his forehead and took her hand. His face had gone from stunned to stolid.

Chuck turned to Ellie, who was holding her hand over her mouth, trying to muffle her laughter. Carina was laughing unmuffled.

"How will you get to work, Ellie?" Chuck asked, making himself look away from Sarah.

"Carina, would you take me?"

"Sure."

"Okay, problem solved. Devon can get the keys from you and pick me up tomorrow."

"That's a lot of trouble, Ellie," Sarah noted, "I have my car. I can drive us."

"No, let Chuck. He knows the area."

"Okay, but he can drive my car."

Ellie seemed at a loss, the momentum of her whim petering out. "Oh, right, of course..."

Chuck said nothing; he tossed the keys back to Ellie. She caught them deftly.

Chuck's head dropped. "Show-off!" Ellie responded with a wry smile. Chuck rotated to Sarah. "I need to go put on my shoes. I had thought I was in for the day...you know, down for the count."

Sarah did not know what to say to that, so she just nodded. She followed Chuck back to his apartment, leaving Ellie and Carina standing by the fountain.

Chuck opened the door and stood aside so that Sarah could go in first. The first thing that struck Sarah was the odor. Clean — but with a trace of the man himself, of Chuck. The second thing that struck her was the unregimented orderliness of the apartment. Everything was in its place but nothing seemed showy or deliberate. It was as if the apartment had spontaneously organized itself.

And that was the word — _organic_. Everything seemed to belong, including Chuck himself: it was as though all the objects, furniture, lights, pictures, posters, action figures..._action figures?_...had found their own place or placement in the apartment. It was the most _at-home_ home Sarah had ever been in.

The only thing out-of-place was Sarah.

Chuck walked in, past her. "Make yourself at home. I'm going to put on some shoes, maybe change my shirt." He continued through the living room and into the bedroom. He shut the door.

Sarah walked into the living room, taking it all in. She saw that Chuck's laptop was on the coffee table, a notebook next to it on one side, a ballpoint pen on the other. The screen was on and it showed a list that matched the one on the paper he had given her, the list of songs. She wondered why he had not just printed it, and then she knew. He wanted to make the effort of doing it by hand. He kept doing things for her and she had, so far, done almost nothing for him. She had done things to him — lied to him, spied on him. She needed to do something for him.

Before Jackie showed up, she had been ready to talk, to tell him something about her dad, her younger years. The conscious-unconscious conning of her youth. That was going to be hard to tell. She had never told anyone. But Sarah's shame about that was more a shame about something that had been done to her, not about something she had done. There was plenty of that kind of thing to tell but most of it came later; she could get to it in stages, the stages on her life's way.

She steeled herself. When Chuck came out, she would tell him.

Steel.

Tell him.

Chuck came out of his bedroom wearing a Stanford t-shirt and with his Chucks on. Sarah braced herself but Chuck was the one who began to talk.

He had a searching look on his face. "Sarah, why do you have a knife strapped to your ankle?"

Sarah was stunned.

And then she knew. He must have seen it after they bumped heads, when she fell down and he retrieved Ellie's keys. That was why he had looked stunned. It had not been pain, it had been shock.

_Shit, shit. Shit._

"A knife?" Sarah asked, stalling.

"Yes, I saw it, the sheath anyway."

Sarah's mind raced but her mouth was motionless. _What can I say?_

Chuck looked at her. Unblinking.

"I...um...you know, I…"

"Stop."

Sarah did.

"You've been lying to me, Sarah. Almost since the beginning. And the first night, even though I didn't believe you, I still trusted you — if that makes sense. I didn't think you were lying to take advantage of me in some way, manipulate me. You were...protecting yourself. I get the feeling that you've had — and needed — a lot of practice at protecting yourself, and in...in a whole bunch of ways. Your response the other day when Ellie surprised you, the knife you're wearing...

Chuck paused. "But I'm not so sure anymore that you aren't trying to manipulate me. Jackie told me that she ran into you outside _Uniform, _after I left."

Sarah nodded meekly.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why did you tell her to wait for me to ask her? I don't understand why you won't tell me anything."

"Chuck, I…"

"No, Sarah. As curious as I am, as...as _attached_...to you as I have become in just a short time, I don't need to have another woman in my life who thinks it is okay to lie to me, to keep me in the dark. I've been there and done that, and I've given you a chance. I've tried not to put any pressure on you, not to...run you off — because it always feels like you are about to run, to leave...and I have been left enough.

"You sent me off on a date with Jackie, even though, speaking for myself, I was on a date with _you_. That, and the lies and secrets, — all that tells me things if you won't. You don't care for me, not as a friend or...not in any way. Jackie does. I can spend time with her without trying to read between her lines, without feeling like I'm locked out, like... you're boxed up.

"I've been sitting in my room, trying to decide what to do. The knife was the final straw. I'm going to fire you as my dating coach. Jackie asked me out again tomorrow, and I put her off. But now I've decided to say _yes. _

"I think it's best if we don't spend any time together for a while. Here, I have what I owe you."

He walked over to her and extended his hand, a folded stack of bills in it.

Sarah was too hurt, too disoriented, to think. She took the bills from him and left his apartment. Neither Carina nor Ellie was still outside, and so she was able to go into her apartment without having to interact with anyone.

She shut the door then leaned against it. One sob escaped from her there, before she walked into the living room. She threw herself on her couch. She heard Chuck's door open and close. She thought about running to him, confessing everything.

But the thought of telling him such things when he was already angry with her, soured on her, was too much.

These were the unripened fruits, the green apples, of her labored dishonesty — her self-protection become self-destruction.

The truth was, to use Jackie's words, Sarah was a goner. She was crazy about Chuck. She wanted to date him, to know she was the woman he was interested in.

But that wasn't going to happen. She had dating-coached herself out of the possibility of dating Chuck. She had driven him to Jackie.

Sarah sat up and wiped her cheeks. As she did, she remembered wiping her cheeks as a girl, sitting in some cheap motel room in...Omaha, Nebraska, maybe...her dad out, gone for hours, and she left with nothing but a few Crayola remnants and a cheap coloring book, a TV whose picture would not stabilize, and a box of Twinkies for her lunch and dinner. She had cried that day, wished for a childhood that was normal, for friends and a family.

She had no sooner wished for it than she was sure she would never have it. She had been beginning to understand what she was helping her dad do, beginning to know it as wrong, and those beginnings were beginning to torment her. She kept trying to push it all down, down, keep it at arm's length or more, a truth about her but not one that mattered. She had not yet learned how to do that successfully, and that day the guilt and shame had oozed back up, crept up close to her, and revealed itself to be a truth about her that mattered. And so she had cried alone, pieces of crayon on the bed, scattered among Twinkie wrappers.

The memory surprised Sarah. Depressed and dispirited her. But instead of pushing it down, keeping it at arm's length, she reinhabited it, and she let those days spool out in her mind, remembering things she had refused to remember for years, each event pulling the other behind it, the unnarrated story of her youth.

She saw it all, her childhood, all of the cons of her teenage years, her lonely unhappiness, her desperate desire to make her father proud of her, her fear that he would stop loving her if she stopped successfully helping him. She saw how her need for love and her unclaimed shame had twined around each other, binding her to a half-life, one eye open, one eye closed, seeing and unseeing, knowing and unknowing.

She had not told anyone else the story; she had not told herself the story, not even as she lived it. _Unnarrated. _ It was strange for memories to come as surprises, and yet Sarah's did. The spooling continued.

At about the time of her life when Graham became part of the story, she heard Chuck's door open and close. The sound of his door closing pulled her from the past back into the present.

She looked at the clock. She had been on the couch for almost three hours.

She got up and turned on the stereo, started the MP3 player. Jazz began to play. She sat down and thought about her dances with Chuck at _The Come-What-May. _She wondered if he could hear the music through the wall between them, and, if he could, if he was remembering their dances too.

She got up and finished her unboxing, putting her things away. The music played on.

As she finished, she heard the final song begin to play; she had been listening for it since its title was the title Chuck had given the collection of songs.

_And I won't take from you _

_Don't you know  
__'Bout a zillion years ago  
__Some star sneezed, now they're paging you in reception _

_Don't you know  
__Jack and Jill-ion years ago  
__Some dinosaur dropped the pail when it saw our reflection _

_Don't you know  
__We're all light  
__Yeah, I read that someplace  
__Don't you know __We're all light  
__Yeah, I read that someplace _

_So you won't mind if I kiss you now  
__Before indecision can bite  
__Don't you know, in this new dark age  
__We're all light _

_Don't you know  
__'Bout your fingertips away  
__There's a universe of atoms that thinks you're real something  
_

_Don't you know  
__Just a couple of lips away  
__Is an evolutionary bean-feast whose insides are jumping_

_Don't you know  
__We're all light  
__Yeah, I read that someplace  
__Don't you know  
__We're all light  
__Yeah, it's a bumper sticker someplace_

_So you won't mind if I kiss you now  
__We may hear the angels recite  
__Don't you know, in this new dark age _

_We're all light..._

As the song played, she stopped working and sat down on the couch, listening with her whole body. The words, given what had happened, were bitter-bittersweet.

Later, she went to sleep without hearing the angels recite, and after indecision's bite.

ooOoo

Sarah woke up Sunday morning feeling worse than when she went to sleep.

But she had at least reached a decision: she was going to tell Chuck the truth. If things between them were done, she wanted them to end without the lies still standing, arches in the ruin.

She needed to tell the truth and untell the lies. Telling herself her story had made her feel...lighter. Not disburdened but lighter. Maybe, having told herself that much, she could tell it all to Chuck. If they could not be...all she wanted, if they could not even be friends, then maybe they could at least be good neighbors.

She showered and dressed and walked next door. She knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again and waited.

"Good morning, Sarah." Sarah turned. Ellie was standing there, two steaming coffee cups in her hands. "I came over to have coffee with Chuck. I...didn't expect to see you."

Sarah knew then were Chuck had gone when she heard him leave and come back yesterday.

"I guess Chuck talked to you? He went to the hospital to see you?"

Ellie dropped her chin, her lips a line. "He was...upset."

"I'm sorry, Ellie, I messed up."

"Yes, Sarah, you did. You really did. Because, unless I am blind or Carina's barbs are misfires, you are already as fond of my brother as he already is...was...of you."

Sarah nodded once, the past tense a stinger in her flesh.

"I thought so," Ellie said, not unkindly. "Maybe you should let me talk to him first. He was still angry when he left the hospital last night."

"Okay," Sarah said.

Chuck had still not answered the door. Sarah knocked again and looked at Ellie. Ellie had realized what was happening — or not happening — and she was now standing closer to Sarah, tense.

Sarah was too.

Tense.

No answer. Sarah turned the knob.

The door was open. Sarah went in first, unconsciously extending her hand, making sure Ellie was behind her. The organized apartment had vanished. Papers and notebooks were strewn across the living room. Nothing was broken, no damage was visible, but the feel of it was wrong.

"Chuck must have been even more upset than I thought," Ellie muttered.

Sarah nodded, but she did not believe Chuck had strewn the papers across the living room.

She noticed Chuck's laptop was nowhere to be seen. His bed had not been slept in.

Sarah was a goner and Chuck was gone.

* * *

A/N: Thoughts?

Give that XTC tune a listen.

—Zettel


	10. Births and Burials

A/N: More story. Four chapters to go after this one, I think.

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Ten: Births and Burials

* * *

Gone.

Chuck was gone.

Gone.

_He's my guy. _

_The right man. _

_The wrong time. _

_I wasn't ready for him, I wasn't ready for me, I wasn't ready for him for me. I'm still not sure I'm ready, but I am ready to try to be ready…_

_And now he's gone._

_Too soon._

_I found him too soon and now I've lost him._

_Lost him._

Ellie put the two cups of coffee down on the kitchen counter. "I don't understand, Sarah. Where's Chuck?" She looked pale, worried.

"Was Chuck planning to go somewhere last night? To spend the night with someone? Does he spend the night away from the apartment?"

Ellie shook her head. "No, he didn't tell me about any plans. In fact, he said he would go home. He was hoping to talk to you tomorrow...I mean _today. _He sometimes spends the night at Morgan's, after gaming marathons, but he wasn't planning to go to Morgan's…"

"Can you call Morgan, Ellie?" Ellie nodded. She fished her cell phone from her robe and began to dial. But then she stopped.

"Sarah, what's going on. What do you think has happened. I know the mess," she jabbed her phone at the papers strewn in the living room, "isn't typical _Chuck_, but we shouldn't overreact. Or, if we should, explain it to me and we can call the police."

Sarah inhaled. _This is it. Time to come clean. _

"I'm worried that...someone might be after his new computer program. The one he was talking about yesterday. The call from Japan."

"Really? I thought Chuck's secrecy with that was mostly to annoy me. Someone wants the program?"

"I don't know for sure, Ellie, but you said Chuck stood to make a lot of money. Maybe someone wants the program?"

"Like corporate espionage?"

Sarah shrugged, added: "It's possible."

Ellie's eyes fixed on Sarah. "Dressed like a spy?"

"Huh?"

"Carina's comment to you yesterday. The way you reacted the day I surprised you, the way you crept in here just now, placing me behind you. And last night, Chuck said something...you are dangerous. I thought he meant emotionally, but…"

"Ellie," Sarah said, her voice pleading, "I am no danger to your brother."

"By the time he got to me yesterday, he seemed like a man who had taken a beating."

Sarah blinked. "I never meant to hurt him."

"Let's say I believe you. It would go a long way if you would tell me the truth. So, Sarah Walker, who are you?"

"If I tell you, will you promise me to just...accept it...for now, and call Morgan? And if Chuck's there, and okay, promise me you will let me tell him?" _Let him be there. I will gladly trade my secret for his safety. _

Ellie sized Sarah up for a moment. "Okay."

"I worked for about a decade as a CIA agent. I recently resigned and moved here to...find myself...restart my life."

"CIA? Wow. Really? Wow. You really _are_ a spy." Ellie blinked. And then her face showed realization. "And so is _Carina_!"

Sarah nodded. "I can't say anything more about that. You'll have to talk to her."

Ellie reoriented and dialed Morgan's number. Sarah watched as Ellie made herself relax.

"Morgan? Morgan, Ellie. I know it's early. Is Chuck there? No? You're sure? Do you know if he had plans to do something last night, go somewhere? No? He was hoping to spend the day with Sarah?" Ellie glanced sideways at Sarah, and Sarah winced. "All right. Thanks. What? Well, he's not home and didn't sleep here." Ellie listened for a minute. "No, Morgan, he's not at Sarah's." Another glance, another wince. "She's with me. Okay, bye, Morgan."

Ellie put her phone in her robe pocket. "So, I assume you worked out the other end of that?"

Sarah felt herself blush and tear up at the same time. "Yes."

"So what do we do? Do we call the police now?" Urgency had reclaimed Ellie's posture, voice.

Sarah stood for a moment, undecided. She was not a spy anymore. But the police would be slow to act, if at all, and she had no story to tell them that would convince them to act quickly. She was an ex-spy with a hunch.

An envious ex-spy with a hunch.

"Will you let me look into it first? The police will take time, time to declare him missing. If, at any point, Chuck's safety requires the police, I will call them. But I will start now, if you will let me. I was...very good at my job, Ellie."

"_That _I find easy to believe, Sarah...Okay, see if you can figure this out. I'm worried, really worried now. But I want to be kept in the loop, involved." Sarah nodded firmly. "So," Ellie said, "where do we start?"

Sarah took her phone from her pocket. "I call Carina."

Ellie watched her dial. "Sarah, when this is over, _we need to talk_."

"I know." Sarah put the phone to her ear.

ooOoo

Sarah glanced over at Carina, sitting in the driver's seat of the DEA-supplied minivan. They were across the street from _Sparkles, Inc. _

Carina leaned forward to look past Sarah at the nondescript building. "Stupid name. So, this Maddy, the short blonde who was with Jackie, she works for this company, and...Pavlov owns it? And she's supposed to report here for work in a few minutes?"

"Yes, I called and asked, pretended to be a customer. I did it while I was waiting for you to pick me up."

"Why start here? Why not make a run straight at Jackie?"

"I need to know more about Jackie's involvement. She's part of this, my gut tells me so, but it's...possible...that she's being manipulated herself or that she's working in the dark, with misinformation." Sarah's reluctance to exonerate Jackie sounded in her voice.

Carina sat back and focused on Sarah. "So, let's say we find Chuck, he's fine, and Jackie's hands are clean. Are you just going to keep waving the white flag, or will you fight for what you want?"

"I just want him...safe. _After that_ — is after that. He will find out about me, one way or another now."

"What's he going to find out, Sarah? Do you know?"

"Yes. No...but...I'm sure that finding him is the key to finding me. I want him more than I want to outrun my past."

"It's about damn time, Sarah, — about time you wanted something more than that."

Sarah glanced at _Sparkles. _Still no sign of Maddy.

"What happened on your last deep-cover op, Carina."

Carina's face turned dour. "Not the time or place, Blondie."

"Who's waving the white flag now, Red?"

Carina looked out the driver's side window at nothing in particular. Sarah gave her a minute but Carina neither spoke nor turned. Sarah put her hand on her friend's shoulder and let it rest there. After a moment, Carina reached up and put her hand on Sarah's.

Carina faced her. "Did you know that I had seen Ellie before yesterday?"

"What? No. How? Where?"

"At the hospital. I just _saw_ her there; we never talked. I've been going...to therapy sessions."

"Are you hurt, did you get hurt? You seem okay."

"Psych therapy, Sarah, not physical therapy. This amazing body remains unscarred but inside the head…" Carina's moxy waned.

Then Sarah saw Carina's eyes widen. "There's Maddy!"

Sarah turned and saw Maddy climbing out of a Jeep. She started inside _Sparkles. _Sarah got out of the car and darted across the street.

Maddy entered. Sarah went in a moment later. She saw Maddy enter a door marked "Employees Only". Not hesitating, Sarah followed her in.

The door took her into a narrow hallway running right and left. On one end was a door: "Men's Locker Room", on the other: "Women's Locker Room". Sarah went in the latter.

Maddy was standing at an open locker, extracting a grey _Sparkle _shirt from it. She heard Sarah come in and she looked at her for a moment in dull half-recognition. Then it clicked: she remembered Sarah. Nerves filled her eyes before she sequestered them.

_Good, she's frightened. _

_Not a hard case. _

_But I am. Was. _

Sarah walked to her, a few inches closer than normal politeness would allow, crowding Maddy's personal space, towering over her. She saw that Maddy was wearing a green _They Might Be Giants _t-shirt. On the back were the words _She's Actual Size. _

Sarah fought back an involuntary smile.

"I know you." Maddy's words were hesitant. "I saw you at that bar a week ago, dancing with Mr. Bartowski. You shouldn't be back here, _employees only_."

"I need to talk to you. _About Mr. Bartowski._" Maddy swallowed. Sarah played her hunch. "What have you been taking from the _Ex-AV _offices, Maddy?" Sarah smiled a piranha's smile, toothy and predatory. "Did you steal any more than the trash?"

Maddy straightened a bit. "You can't steal trash."

Sarah stepped closer to Maddy, forcing her to tilt her head severely to see Sarah's face. She curled her fingers around one of Maddy's shoulders, squeezing it hard. "Don't make me start splitting hairs, Maddy. You wouldn't like me when I split hairs."

Maddy's next swallow was a gulp. "I only took the trash. I made sure it did not go in the trash."

"You gave it to Jackie." Sarah did not ask; she asserted. Maddy nodded, surprise in her eyes. "And what were you hoping to find in Mr. Bartowski's trash?"

"I don't know. Information on what he was working on, I guess. But no one ever told me. Jackie just paid me extra for turning the trash over to her."

"When did this start?"

"A few days after Jackie started working at _BB&C, _the law firm. She ran into me at lunch her first couple of days and we became friends."

Sarah's fingers were steel, digging deeper into Maddy's shoulder. "You aren't lying to me, are you, Maddy?"

Maddy shook her head hard. "No. I know nothing. Nothing. I just carried the trash. I never looked into it.

"Have you seen Jackie today?"

"No."

"I'll let go in a moment, Maddy, and I'm sorry to have to cause you any pain. But I want you to understand that I'm not an enemy you want to make. After I leave, you will do your day's work and you will not call Jackie or talk to anyone about my visiting you here. If you do, I'll find out. And I'll dedicate myself to making your life hell. _You'll be the only bee in my bonnet, Maddy. Is that clear?"_

Sarah's fingers dug still deeper in the short woman's shoulders. Maddy hissed in pain. Sarah put her artic blue eyes near Maddy's baby blue ones. "Good." She released her grip and Maddy sagged, reaching up with her opposite hand to rub her shoulder.

"You...You're scary."

Sarah was about to turn away but she gave Maddy a final death glare. "You have no idea. And just think: you haven't seen _me_ actual size. I can be much scarier, Maddy."

Maddy looked like she might vomit. She nodded, near panic. Sarah dialed back the glare and left the locker room.

Sarah stopped in the hallway, gasping. She felt dizzy. That had not been close to the first time Sarah had intimidated someone, hurt someone. She had done Maddy no permanent damage, probably not even bruised her, but Sarah felt her system rebel against it. _Revulsion. Self-revulsion. _She bent over, her hands on her knees, fighting back the dizziness.

While she had been strong-arming Maddy, she had felt nothing, or had registered no feeling. In the past, she felt nothing during such events and nothing afterward. She felt it now, new. Or, not new, just owned for the first time. In the past, she had kept herself in an internal vise-grip far more unrelenting than the one she used externally on Maddy. She _had_ felt this revulsion in the past, but had pushed it down, away, kept it at a distance. That little girl in Omaha had grown into — created —grown into and created, _both_ —Graham's enforcer, his infiltrator, and terminator.

The tears that little girl had cried were still falling, had been falling, all this time, unheeded by the now-grown woman who shed them but showed them to no one, including herself. _Why cry today when tomorrow there will be another reason for fresh tears?_

And the hammer blow fell.

She had spent all these years trying not to know her past because she knew her future would be _the same_, a bleak continuation of the gray smear of her life, first with her father and then with Graham. There were variations, but variations on a theme, variations in shades of gray. And that smear would continue into the future until a stain of red, her red, her blood-red punctuated it, her end.

Until Budapest.

Until the baby.

Until the pink of the baby's blanket colorized Sarah's gray world.

One unexpected splash of pastel in a smear of gray — and it changed Sarah. It made her hungry for more color.

More.

The brown, the patient brown, of Chuck's eyes.

The red, the kissable red, of his lips.

The white, the encouraging white, of his smile.

She stood up straight, the dizziness passing. She felt better.

She could get through this, would get through this. But she was not Agent Walker anymore. She could put her on, put on the whole armor, the _kevlar_, of Agent Walker — but she could no longer coerce herself into believing that Sarah Walker _was_ Agent Walker.

She did not need to believe that any longer.

She had needed to believe it for a long, long time. _Protection, Chuck said. _

Agent Walker came into existence, the moment of parturition, was in that Crayola and Twinkie hotel bed in Omaha, as the little girl shed the final tears she would shed in a decade and a half, and gave birth to Agent Walker, created her — although the newborn had not been named, would not be named, until Graham named her before he sent her to the Farm.

Sarah left _Sparkles_. Back in the car, she told Carina to drive to Jackie's address. Carina seemed uneager for conversation, so she started the car without comment.

They drove, both women lost in thought, an air of increasing urgency in the car.

ooOoo

Jackie's apartment was atop a tall building downtown. Carina parked the car and got out as Sarah did. Sarah stopped. "I can do this by myself."

"I know you can. But you aren't going to. If we're here, you think that your suspicions were right?"

"Maddy was taking Chuck's trash. Jackie was paying her to do it."

Carina nodded, her eyes thoughtful. "So, they hoped that Chuck would throw something away that would help them?"

Sarah shrugged. "Maybe. But my bet is that Maddy was just Plan B, in case Chuck was careless. Jackie was Plan A. She was supposed to get the goods. Chuck told her yesterday that the program was finished. Mentioned its distribution. That's why this happened now. "

"So, are you planning to just _knock_ on Jackie's door?"

"Actually, yes. And since you are going to help, I'll have you keep a watch on the door once I go inside."

"Did you hurt the short janitor?"

Sarah glanced away. "A little. Not much. But I'm sure she won't have alerted Jackie."

"I can imagine. I've seen Scary Sarah enough times."

Sarah did not respond to that. "Let's find Chuck and then we can...put Scary Sarah away...for good."

Sarah glanced back at Carina. Carina regarded Sarah as if she had never seen her before. But after a moment, she shook her head gently and started walking to the elevator.

Sarah turned and walked beside her.

"Although she's awesome in a tough spot, I can't say I'll miss Scary Sarah overmuch," Carina commented quietly as the elevator pinged its arrival.

ooOoo

Jackie opened the door without asking who it was, without checking through the door viewer. Sarah could see light coming through it; it never darkened.

Confronting Sarah, Jackie winced. Jackie caught it, quelled it, but not before Sarah saw it. Sarah tried not to react to the jerk, keeping the taut smile she had chosen fixed in place.

"Sarah?"

"Hey, Jackie. Is Chuck here?"

Jackie's eyes widened dramatically. "Chuck? No, why would he be here?"

Sarah dropped her shoulders, weakened her smile. "He told me that you had asked him out today, and I...needed to talk to him."

Jackie kept her hand on the door and did not move. "I asked, but he didn't answer. I was hoping to hear from him."

"Oh," Sarah said, acting lost, ashamed. "I...shouldn't have come here. I just…" Sarah's eyes filled with tears. Sarah was not sure if her tears were real or not — but they seemed to reassure Jackie. She stepped back, opening the apartment to Sarah.

Sarah walked in. "I'm sorry, Jackie. I really...shouldn't be here." Sarah wiped at her eyes.

Jackie relaxed, a half-smile of pity on her face. "You do have feelings for him, don't you?"

Sarah nodded; the nods were choppy. "I was hoping to tell him before...before it was too late."

Jackie motioned Sarah to the living room. Sarah walked in and sat in a chair. Jackie sat on the couch. The apartment had an impressive view of LA.

Jackie crossed her legs, waiting for Sarah to say something. Sarah wiped at her eyes again. She was having trouble reading Jackie. _Irene: If she's no good, she's damn good at it. _

"So," Sarah said, "do you know where Chuck is? I looked for him this morning and he wasn't home. His sister told me he hadn't planned to go anywhere...he talked to her last night...but he seems to be gone. I...I thought maybe he'd spent the night..._here_..."

Jackie did not react immediately. "No — I _like_ Chuck, but that would be...quick." Jackie crossed her arms above her crossed legs.

"I...I meant nothing by that...I just...I just need to find him. Ellie's worried too."

Jackie stiffened even more. "She is?"

Sarah nodded. "She had a key and we went inside. Chuck's papers were strewn around the living room. He hadn't slept in his bed."

Jackie's neck reddened, the red creeping up from the collar of her blouse to overtake her face. She uncrossed her arms and leaned forward. "Chuck's not messy."

"No, he's not. I saw his apartment before. Everything in its place."

Jackie nodded. "His office is like that too. And you say no one has seen him since last night."

"Yes. He left his apartment and visited Ellie at the hospital. She told me. He left and came home. I know he did because I heard him get back. But if he left again, it must have been after I went to sleep."

Jackie looked around her apartment, her blush deepening. Sarah could see that her breathing was quicker, her eyes dilated.

_It's time._

"What did you do, Jackie?" The pout and self-pity that had threaded through all Sarah said was gone. Her tone was soft but stern, threatening.

Jackie's head snapped around. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you've been paying Maddy to collect Chuck's trash. I mean that you showed up at _The Come-What-May _out of the blue, then at _Uniform _out of the blue. Neither of the boutiques whose bags you carried that day has a shop remotely within walking distance of _Uniform. _And then you show up yesterday, just after Chuck has sold his program and…I mean that you are involved in something that targets Chuck, his program."

Jackie's head was swiveling slowly. "He _sold _it? Already. Oh, no."

"What? _What_ have you done, Jackie?"

Jackie did not answer. She stood up abruptly, grabbed her phone from the coffee table. She had not done anything with it before Sarah uncoiled from the chair, a blur, and had Jackie's phone in her hand. Jackie stood with her empty hand, her mouth hanging open.

"Who were you going to call? Uncle Pavlov?"

It was Jackie's turn to slump, and not in pretense. Her look at Sarah mixed fear and panic. "How do you know all this? _Who _are you?"

"I'm Chuck's girlfriend." _Yes, yes. No white flag. No yielding. No surrender. _

_No restrictor plates._

Jackie blinked. "No, you're not. You've never even been on a date."

"Yes, we have. We've never been together when it wasn't a date, when we weren't together — except one or both of us managed not to know it every time."

"You can't just declare yourself his girlfriend."

"No, it's not a _romantic declaration_, Jackie, not yet. It's a _martial_ declaration. I'm raising the battle flag; it's a declaration of _war_. If anyone harms Chuck, in the slightest, the most minuscule, the tiniest way, I will rain the apocalypse down on him...or her. Brimstone, Jackie," Sarah handed Jackie her phone, "the End of Days."

Sarah knew her eyes had darkened, had become the midnight blue of glacial shadows.

Jackie accepted the phone, shrank from Sarah's eyes, stumbled back a step, the sheer power of Sarah's threat compelling a retreat.

"Now, what did you _do_?" Sarah rasped, a harsh whisper.

Jackie's lower lip trembled. "I do like Chuck. I didn't...don't...want anything to happen to him. Nothing was supposed to happen to him!"

Sarah raised her foot and brought it down on the coffee table like a lightning strike. It splintered, snapped. "Tell me, Jackie!"

Jackie snapped. She sank onto the couch, her head then sinking into her hands.

"Sarah!" Carina was knocking on Jackie's door. Sarah walked hurried to it and opened it, gesturing for Carina to come in, then returned to Jackie. Jackie was sitting, hunched over, but her head was no longer in her hands.

She glanced up and saw Carina, the brandished pistol in Carina's hand. "Shit. You too? Who are you two?"

Sarah gestured to Carina. "Let's just say that she works for the government and that she's working with me. Now, I have wasted enough time. Where is Chuck Bartowski? What have you done?"

"My uncle. He made me do it. Said he would cut me off, that I'd have to get a real job. All I needed to do was get close to Chuck, get him to tell me about what he was working on, tell me some details.

"I hired Maddy to collect Chuck's trash. Anything in it that looked interesting, I gave to my uncle."

"You met him at a restaurant on your lunch hour?"

Jackie's mouth fell open. "How…?"

"Never mind. What did you tell your uncle yesterday?"

"I told him...that I'd found out that Chuck had finished the program. That he was talking like he was about to sell it."

"And what did your uncle say?"

"Nothing. He just told me to stay close to Chuck...I expected Chuck to call about today, to see him today."

"How did your uncle know about the program?"

Jackie shrugged helplessly. "I don't know. But, when...I wasn't lying. My uncle likes Chuck. He just wants the program. He wouldn't...He won't...hurt Chuck."

"So you think he has him?"

Jackie did not respond, did not move. Then she nodded. "Yeah, I do."

Sarah's tone became menacing again. "And where would he take him? His house here, in LA?"

"No, no, not likely. He probably took him to the Farm."

Sarah went cold. "_The Farm_?"

"My uncle has a place, a ranch, but he calls it the Farm. It's north by northeast of LA by two or three hours. It's private, isolated." She gave Sarah the address. Then she gathered herself and looked hard at Sarah. "This started as just an errand for my uncle — but I genuinely like Chuck. I want nothing to happen to him. I thought nothing would. I've been sitting here today wondering if I could figure out how to tell him what I'd done, and still have him like me. Any path back from the lies, any path forward."

Sarah stood and stared at Jackie. Carina cleared her throat. "C'mon, Sarah. We've got a drive ahead of us."

Sarah continued to stare at Jackie, unseeing.

Carina turned to Jackie. "I'm a federal agent. If you know what's good for you, do not alert your uncle. If you do care…" — Carina glanced at Sarah — "for Chuck, and for your own health and freedom…" — Carina glanced at the caved-in coffee table — "say nothing to anyone, and just sit tight right here. Enjoy the view. It's nice."

Jackie dropped her head in agreement. "C'mon Sarah!"

Carina put her gun into the waist of her pants and grabbed Sarah. They left Jackie's apartment.

ooOoo

They were heading to the Farm.

Sarah's head and heart were spinning.

She had CIA-dating-coached Chuck deeper into Jackie's on-going seduction. And she had accused Chuck of a 'civilian' seduction. The only person in the whole mess of lies and manipulations who was not thinking in terms of seduction was Chuck.

The only person telling the truth was Chuck.

And the whole time, he had been hoping for Sarah, hoping she would figure it out, understand what was in his head and heart. Now, she did, she understood how confused he must have been.

The way she had held him and allowed herself to be held while they danced.

All the little moments during the coaching sessions.

What she told Jackie was true. She had never been with Chuck except on a date. So much of what she said and did must have made Chuck believe that — but then so much of what she said and did must have made him disbelieve that.

What she gave him with her right hand she took with her left.

If she found him, she would just _give. _Regardless of the consequences.

_No more self-protection._

_No more kevlar._

It was time to feel her own life, to embrace the happiness or the sadness of it, come what may. The pain and the joy. She had only one life. _Still Life In Gray. _It was time to start that life, add chromatic colors, put it into self-directed motion, make something of it.

She looked at Carina, driving the car. "We have some time, Carina. Tell me about that last mission. What happened to you?"

Carina frowned. Sarah thought she would refuse the question.

But then she spoke, her words the product of careful attention. "I was undercover, trying to take down the leader of a drug cartel in Mexico. A woman. I blew my cover. The woman captured me." Carina paused, her knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. "The bitch decided to kill me by burying me alive."

"What?!"

* * *

A/N: Tune in next time for Chapter Eleven: "Back to Nature". Thoughts? I love to hear from you.

Oh, I borrowed the term 'Scary Sarah' from WvonB's wonderful, The Plan. He's posting a sequel to it currently.


	11. Back to Nature

A/N: Thanks for the enthusiastic comments and PMs. We're heading into the backstretch of our story, which is a romance, and fluff-ish, remember?

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Eleven: Back to Nature

* * *

It's easy when you don't try  
Going on first impressions  
Man in a cage has made his confession  
Now you've seen me at my worst  
And it won't be the last time I'm down there

I want you to know I feel completely at ease  
Read me like a book  
That's fallen down between your knees  
Please, let me have my way with you

It's only natural that I should want to  
Be there with you  
It's only natural that you should  
Feel the same way too

— Crowded House, _It's Only Natural_

* * *

Carina rolled her hands around the steering wheel, gripping it tighter, her knuckles even whiter.

"Carina?"

"It's a long story. I had infiltrated her inner circle; it had taken a few months of hustling, months of lying, weeks letting her younger brother...put his hands on me...but moving fast enough that he never got to put...anything else on me." Carina glanced at Sarah. "You know the drill — _slap and tickle, no pickle_. Isn't that Roan Montgomery's famous phrase?"

"Yes...it is; and...yes, I know...the drill." Sarah glanced away, out the passenger side window.

"Anyway…" — Carina went on — "...the brother wanted me enough to push on big sister, Juanita was her name, to fast track me into the inner circle. He thought it would fast track him into my bed.

"Juanita went along, although I knew she was...suspicious. Little brother didn't have the best track record as a...judge of character. I was biding my time: a big deal was about to go down, huge amounts of drugs and money changing hands, Juanita's American buyers coming to Mexico. I was going to gut the whole cartel."

Carina sped up the car, darted into a space in the left-hand side of traffic, and passed a slow-moving car. "It all would have worked out. Back-ups in place, plan in place. But a day before it was to happen, I was in the main house in the cartel's compound, and I saw a woman come up from the basement. I thought I heard weeping from below. I hid. The woman went up to the second-floor study; Juanita was up there.

"I snuck downstairs. I picked the lock on the basement door and went inside. There were a dozen young women chained down there, Sarah. Maybe more.

"Juanita had added sex trafficking to her other charming occupations. — Did you know that worldwide, sex trafficking _of_ women is now largely done _by _women — those are the percentages? What does that say about the so-called 'weaker sex'? _Shit_." Carina twisted her mouth fiercely.

"The girls were drugged, most of them were asleep, the others lulled into insensibility. All except one. The one whose crying I heard. I went to her, tried to calm her down, so she wouldn't attract any more attention.

"The girls were all chained to the stone floor, like...galley slaves. They were young, most of them, just into puberty. It was...awful. I couldn't free the one who was crying. I left to try to find something — a crowbar, something. Juanita and the other woman were on their way down as I was on my way up. I tried to cover it, treat it as a mistake, as if I did not understand what I had seen...but Juanita knew.

"I had no chance. The house, the compound, was full of Juanita's 'soldiers'. I had a gun but no chance to get it, and if I had, I would have died right there.

"Juanita and the other woman, Aida, chained me in the basement with the women...the girls. She left me down there for hours.

"She came to get me finally, unchained me, and she and several men — and Aida — took me out to a car. They drove me into the desert. I got to watch while they dug the hole. A truck arrived with a box, a coffin, and Juanita told me what she was planning to do. I thought it was a ruse, an attempt to get me to tell her about what I knew, what my team knew.

But she didn't care about it. She was going to make an example of me, make sure the story got around. Make sure her brother understood his mistake. Make sure no one thought that the fact that she was a woman meant she couldn't run a cartel.

Carina caught her breath. "She put the box in the hole. Then she made me get in it. They nailed it shut and started shoveling the dirt in." Carina's voice trembled. "I kept thinking that they would stop, dig me back up. But eventually all light was gone and sound all got muffled, although I heard the car and truck drive away.

"I just couldn't believe it.

"I always knew I might die on the job, that I would die on the job, but I thought, you know, a bullet, an explosion. Not _that_. Not suffocating inside a coffin. At first, I just laid there...in denial. Then I clawed at the top of the box, destroyed my manicure…" Carina tried to smile but failed, the failure ghastly, "...eventually, I had no nails left and no voice left and I realized...it was over. Done. I could barely breathe…"

She turned to Sarah. "It's not true, you know…"

"What's not?"

"The _life-flashing-before-your-eyes_ thing. Mine didn't. No flash. It _crawled_ past me in garish, painful slow-mo. It was like I could see myself objectively, for the first time. The impulsiveness, the one-upping, the constant motion, the bright lights, the loud music, the distraction...the whole damn thing. My life. I realized I had one friend — who I barely knew and who barely knew me, a parade of men that was really only a parade of...body parts. Let's just say it turns out I don't remember many _faces_. And I knew, knew that the woman who's had the 'best time', the most pleasure is..._not _the winner. She's not the _winner_…"

"Pleasure's great, but it doesn't, it can't last. _It comes and goes_." Carina looked at Sarah again and a hint of her moxie revisited her, a brief half-smile. "If all you do is chase pleasure, you're in a spiral of diminishing returns. You need more to satisfy you, and still more, until you can't be satisfied, until pleasure itself eludes you. The spiral of addiction. The worst way to have a good time in life is to make having a good time the point of your life. Pleasure's best when it's a by-product of the things that really do matter, the things that last: friendship, companionship, meaningful work." Carina stopped, grinned thinly at herself in mockery. "Sorry, now I sound like my therapist."

Sarah nodded, smiled a little in return. "How did you get out?"

"It turns out one of my team members saw the car and then the truck leave the compound. He followed at a distance. He lost them at one point, and it took him time to find their path out into the desert — but he did. He found where they'd parked, the fresh dirt. Pure luck, really. He dug me up. I was unconscious by then, and don't even remember being found. I just remember...the horror...of knowing I would die in that desert hole. Rot there."

Carina fell into silence.

"So what will you do, Carina? Will you go back into deep cover?"

Carina sighed. "I don't know. I'm trying to get my feet under me. I shouldn't have blown up at you the way I did in the bathroom, at _The Come-What-May_. It just panicked me...hearing that you were out when I was...tottering...so unsure. And I'm sorry I haven't been around more the last few days, but I've had therapy, and Morgan, and I find that I can't _sleep-in_ much anymore. My bed, the covers...it starts to remind me of that coffin…Even my room, my apartment can...it's post-traumatic shock, my therapist says, trauma-induced claustrophobia. She thinks it will pass."

"And Morgan?"

Carina brightened. "As I said, I ran into him at the Buy More. I was there buying a nightlight." Carina blushed. "He made me laugh. I liked him. I still do, even more. And hanging out with him, getting to know him, letting him get to know me, a little, it's been good. He's softhearted...under the beard and the games and comics. He keeps my mind far from coffins." Carina chuckled.

Sarah laughed softly with her. "I can imagine."

They drove on without speaking, each woman lost in thought. Carina wove the car in and out of traffic. Sarah wove her thoughts in and out of her past.

"So, Carina," Sarah said, "that _How To Love _book you lent me. You've been reading it?"

"Yeah...I picked it up at a used bookstore, along with the dating book. Therapist suggestions. Have you been reading it?"

"Only a few pages. Do you think it's possible, for women like us, who've lived our lives, done what we've done, — is it possible for us to change, turn around, go in a new direction? Is it possible for us to love...and be loved?"

"They do a number on us about that, don't they?"

"They?"

"The Farm, the training, our superiors. _Spies don't fall in love. _I wish I had a dollar for every time I have thought that, said that." She shook her head. "It's utter shit. First, because you can't choose to fall in love or not to fall in love.

"But second, because it's a way of controlling us. Loving a person means seeing the person as an end, never as a means. But everything they teach us is about treating people as mere means — including ourselves. We treat ourselves as mere means..._slap and tickle._" They were both silent again.

Then Carina restarted: "I actually memorized a passage from that book. It really hit me. It's about respect and trust.

_"'Love without trust is not yet love. Of course, first you have to have trust, respect, and confidence in yourself. Trust that you have a good and compassionate nature. You are part of the universe; you are made of stars. When you look at your loved one, you see that he is also made of stars and carries eternity inside. Looking this way, we naturally feel reverence. True love cannot be without trust and respect for oneself and for the other person.'_

"Everything we are taught runs counter to that, Sarah. We are taught to mistrust and disrespect, required to do it systematically. We are taught the opposite of reverence. I want...I want to see people made of stars, people with eternity inside them. I want to look into _the mirror_ and see stars and eternity…"

Sarah thought about the jewelry she purchased, the small gold earrings, stars, and the necklace with its pendant star. She was wearing them now.

_Stars_.

_I am made of stars?_

_We're all light?_

Maybe she could feel this sort of reverence for herself, could look at herself and see stars and eternity. Maybe she already was. She felt like she was made of stars, had eternity inside her, when Chuck looked at her. _But will he keep looking at me that way once I tell him who I've had been? _

_Or will his look darken, the reverence vanish?_

Carina seemed to intuit Sarah's thought. "Chuck saw stars the minute he saw you in the bar, Blondie. He's not going to stop."

Sarah did not respond. They had left the suburbs behind and entered a more rural landscape. Sarah texted Ellie to tell her they were still looking for Chuck but had a lead. Sarah did not go into more details and Ellie's acknowledging text did not ask, although Sarah knew how worried Ellie must be.

They drove on.

ooOoo

Carina slowed the car as they neared the address Jackie had given them. They had taken a succession of smaller roads until they had turned onto a well-kept but gravel road. Carina found a spot on the side of the road where there was a gap in the vegetation and she pulled the car into it, driving far enough to make the car difficult to see.

Without speaking, they fell into a routine, one from their past, checking weapons and ammunition, making sure they were ready. Each woman had a pistol. Sarah had her knives. Carina had a tranq gun. They exchanged a look but no words and got out of the car.

They worked their way alongside the road until they came to a bend in it. As they came around the bend, the house was visible. They moved away from the road and into the high weeds.

It was a large, low ranch house, built of wood and stone. Off to the right was a barn, to the left a large garage. Several cars were parked in front of the house.

Seeing the cars gave Sarah a bad feeling.

As they studied the scene, the barn door opened and three large men came out, shutting the door behind them. Sarah glanced at Carina; Carina glanced at Sarah.

Mobsters. Unmistakable. The men were dressed much alike, dark slacks, polo shirts, suit jackets. There were clearly shoulder holsters under the jackets. Two of the men got in one car, the third in another and they headed away, along the gravel road. Sarah and Carina flattened themselves. They stayed down, holding their breath, until it seemed that the cars had to have reached and past, their car. They waited a couple of minutes longer, just to be sure, but there was no sign that their car had been discovered.

But then, the men did not seem to be overly watchful when they came out of the barn. That was good. No one was expecting trouble.

Good. But Sarah's bad feeling persisted. She needed to find Chuck.

She motioned to Carina to keep watch. She moved out of the weeds and across the gravel road. She ran quickly to the side of the barn. Above her was an opening in the barn, an opening into the loft. A ladder built into the side of the barn went up to it. Sarah looked back at Carina and pointed up. She saw Carina nod. Sarah scampered up into the loft.

The loft was empty except for a few boxes and a couple of broken pieces of furniture. Sarah was careful of each footfall, patient, not wanting to cause any noise. She was almost to the edge of the loft when she heard Chuck's voice.

"I've told you — and the scary men who were just here — I've already sold the program. I've given my word. I'm not going to change my mind." Chuck sounded like himself, anxious, but like himself. Sarah felt her chest expand a bit. She was able to take a deeper breath.

She peeked over the edge of the loft. Chuck was seated in a metal lawn chair. He was not restrained, tied. He looked as anxious as he sounded. "Look, I'm willing to call this all a misunderstanding. Even the scary men forcing me to leave my place and come out here. Just call it a nice, relaxing field trip. But I can't sell the program to you."

A man, the one Sarah saw meeting Jackie at the restaurant, walked into view. He was annoyed. "I'm offering you more money than they are."

"True," Chuck said, "but it's not about the money. The money's nice, but it was a labor of love, an act of fidelity to my father's memory. I trust my buyer to do what I want to be done with the program; I don't trust you. I'm glad you let me rent the office space and all, and I like you well enough, given that we don't know each other, but I don't trust you. Not because you are, you know, untrustworthy, but, well, I mean, here I am, escorted by scary men in the night to your ranch house. It doesn't build...confidence, you know."

Sarah smiled at his ramble.

_Chuck. _

_I found you._

She looked at Pavlov. He had no weapon that she could see, no weapon in sight anywhere nearby. He seemed to be begging Chuck, not threatening Chuck.

"Speaking of...my program, that is...how did you even know about it?"

Pavlov stopped pacing. "You told me, Chuck."

"I did not."

"Did too. More or less."

"What's that mean?"

"You told me you were working on something top-secret, remember? And then you mentioned it again in that magazine article I read. And then I was at the building one day when the Japanese folks visited. I heard them talking in the hallway outside _Ex-AV. _Luckily, they were talking in English and too excited to pay attention. They talked about how revolutionary it was, it's application in gaming and in education…How much they hoped you would sell it to them when it was finished."

"Damn," Chuck said but without much, if any, rancor. "It's hard to keep secrets."

_Yes, Chuck it really is. Doing it professionally knots you up inside, knots up your personal life too. _

_Alienates you from the truth, from yourself. Carina coped one way, I coped another, if either of us can be said to have coped successfully. _

"Chuck, you should just say _yes_, or…"

"Or _what_?" Chuck grinned, "Or _else?_" He meant it as a joke but the grim look on Pavlov's face made Chuck go pale. "What is it, Vic?"

"Things have spiraled, Chuck. I'm not sure I can control the situation anymore. — Look, sell it to me. I'll get you out of here, if I can."

Sarah's bad feeling came back in spades.

"It's too late for that, _Viktor."_

Sarah froze. _Oh, Jesus. _

She felt a hand on her shoulder. "Sarah," Carina whispered, out of breath, "it's…"

_Abagor. _

The hulking Russian strode into view. Pavlov shrank away from him.

Sarah turned to face Carina. "I thought he was in prison…" she whispered.

"Me too, until a minute ago…" Carina answered, shrugging helplessly.

"Mr. Bartowski, I have given _Viktor _all the time I can spare. My boss wants your program and you will give it to him." Abagor's tone was matter-of-fact, icily threatening because so matter-of-fact. "You will give it to me, or I will take parts of you until you do." Abagor took an old, rusty bolt-cutter down from where it hung on the wall. "I will start with fingers, then I will move...southward." He opened and closed the cutters, nodding his satisfaction with them.

Chuck's face went completely white. "Who...who are you?"

"My name does not matter. But I do. My boss in the homeland does. You will give us this program, this technology, or...else."

Sarah felt a tremble of terror and rage pulse through her.

Abagor walked to Chuck and took one of Chuck's hands in his. "Let's begin with the right hand, you are right-handed. I want you to understand more than the pain, Mr. Bartowski, I want you to understand the long-term damage, the handicap…"

"I can't just give it to you. There's nothing on paper. I've been scrupulously careful about that. The only full copy is on my computer back at the office, air-gapped and password protected so completely that no one but me can get to it."

Abagor smiled in confident victory. "You see, Mr. Bartowski, you have already lost. I now know where the program is and that there is a password and that you, of course, know it. So, my rusty friend and I will...ask until you tell us the password. We only need the program, not you."

"Wait, Abagor, wait. I'll not be a party to this. I've done my bit, more than repaid the money your boss gave me years ago to get established in this country. I've been loyal. But this was never...never what I signed on for. Storage, transport. Small things, no blood, no one physically hurt. Not this."

"Shut up, _Viktor. _It is time to pay the piper. Did you really think that you weren't owned, weren't always going to be owned? You will help me with this and you will stop simpering."

The barn door opened and two of the three men who had driven away came in. "We found a clearing not far away. It will work. Abram is stationed there. We have thirty minutes."

Abagor nodded once, heavily. "More than enough time. Mr. Bartowski was just about to share his password with us. Come, _Viktor, _hold Mr. Bartowski's arm for me. I would hate to do sloppy work."

Sarah pointed to Abagor and then to herself. She next pointed to the two men and to Carina. Carina mouthed _okay. _

Pavlov had circled behind Chuck and taken hold of his right arm. He looked like he would be sick. Chuck seemed hypnotized by the bolt cutter in Abagor's hand.

Sarah looked around her. One of the broken pieces of furniture was a high-backed chair, broken into pieces. One piece was long and round, a part of the back's frame. Sarah quickly moved to it, picked it up. It was heavy, hard. Carina was watching her.

Sarah did not want to use her gun, her knife. Not in front of Chuck. Not unless it was absolutely necessary to save him. Gripping the furniture stick in her hand, Sarah ran to the edge of the loft and sprang into the air.

She landed as she planned: on top of Abagor.

She heard Chuck breathe out her name: "Sarah?"

Abagor went down under her sudden weight. Sarah landed on him, driving her knee into his back as hard as she could. She heard the breath _whoosh _out of him. She brought the stick down across the back of his head once, then as she bounced to her feet, a second time, much harder.

"Sarah?" Chuck asked a second time.

Sarah spun. The two men who had come in were both on the ground, tranqed. Carina was already coming down the ladder inside. "Got them."

Sarah heard Chuck again. "Carina?"

Abagor tried to get up and Sarah hit him again. "Stay down, you bastard," she hissed as he fell flat onto his face.

Chuck, again: "Sarah?"

Sarah dropped the stick and stepped across the unconscious bulk of Abagor. She stood in front of Chuck for a second, her eyes locked onto his. Pavlov dropped Chuck's arm, retreated.

"Chuck."

Chuck stood up. Sarah was unsure of what to do. He was staring at her in disbelief. Carina broke the silence. "You see any rope?"

Sarah broke eye-contact with Chuck and looked around. Pavlov answered. "There's a ball of twine back here." He pointed deeper into the barn.

"Get it," Carina ordered. Pavlov did. He handed it to Sarah. She unrolled a length and then bent down, retrieving her knife from her ankle, and cut it. She tied Abagor securely. Carina took the ball and went to tie up the two tranqed men.

As Sarah finished, she could feel Chuck watching her. She still did not know what to say.

"Did you know that the world's largest ball of twine is in Darwin, Minnesota?" Chuck asked her.

She looked up, finishing the knot. "No, it's in Cawker, Kansas."

Chuck smiled at her. "Actually, I think there are about four different cities each of which claims to have the world's largest ball of twine. But I decided to believe Darwin's claim. Survival of the fittest."

Sarah laughed, maybe too loudly, but her terror and rage were draining from her. "I've seen the one in Cawker."

"Really? That's cool. I'd like to see it, or the one in Darwin...any large ball of twine, really."

The strangeness of the situation struck Sarah. "Chuck, we need to talk..."

He nodded. "You're not kidding…"

"But it will have to wait. We need to see about all this," she gestured at Abagor, the men.

"Right."

"Carina, can you make a call, get someone out here?"

"Yeah, I'll call the locals. No doubt folks are hunting for Abagor here. I can flash my badge and keep questions at a minimum." She pulled out her phone. "C'mon, Uncle Pavlov, let's give these two a minute."

Pavlov trailed Carina out of the barn.

"I still don't know how he knew I was selling the program just now."

"Jackie," Sarah said.

"Huh? What about her?"

"She's his niece. He was pressuring her to get to know you, to find out about the program."

Chuck opened his mouth then shut it. He opened it again. "But she didn't know anything about the program."

"You told her Saturday that it was sold. At Echo Park Lake."

"Oh, I did, didn't I? Wait, how do _you_ know _that?"_

She could say that she had learned it from Jackie — that thought came to Sarah's mind. But she did not. "I heard you tell her."

"How? You weren't there…"

"Yes, I was. I followed you. I was...suspicious of Jackie."

She saw Chuck thinking. His shoulders sank. "Oh, you've been on...a case...a mission...all this time. From the beginning. You were just with me to keep tabs on Jackie, Pavlov...this guy," he nodded down at Abagor.

"No, Chuck, no. It wasn't like that. I got...interested in Jackie because I was interested in you, not the other way around. I'm here for you, Chuck. Not for any other reason."

Chuck's face registered a quick succession of changes: puzzlement, disbelief, understanding, embarrassment: he ended by turning red. "Oh."

Carina opened the door and poked her head in. "Help is on the way. They dispatched someone to find Abram." She closed the door.

"I'm sorry, Chuck, about all this, about everything. I messed it all up, got everything twisted around. You're _looking_ at the world's largest ball, the largest _snarl_ of twine."

Chuck took a step back and gazed at her. "I have to say, it's so much more than I expected."

Sarah tried to smile. "We'll see what you say after we have that talk."

A guardedness crept into Chuck's eyes.

He looked down at Abagor. "I guess so. You hit that guy like you knew him." He looked back up at her. "I take it you are...some kind of detective or spy or something?"

As his color returned, he seemed to be opening a wary distance seemed between them.

"I used to be, Chuck. But I'm not anymore."

He nodded but she did not know what the nod meant.

* * *

A/N: More soon. Please stay in contact: hearing from you keeps me at it.


	12. Testimony

A/N: Onward.

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Twelve: Testimony

* * *

Carina took charge when the local law enforcement folks showed up. Her badge flashed and flashed again. She told the locals a story about identifying Abagor, and following him. She contacted her superiors at the DEA, who promptly empowered her to oversee the goings-on.

She managed to keep Chuck and Sarah mostly out of it, telling a story on which they were with her when she first saw Abagor and that they had been by-standers when Carina captured him, Pavlov and the other men.

Sarah had to keep herself from smiling. In the past, this would have been Carina co-opting all the glory, all the credit. But Sarah knew that this time it was her shielding Chuck and Sarah from unwanted complications, complications about Sarah's past and complications about Chuck's program.

With an alternating series of runway smiles and harsh glares, Carina got the prisoners taken to the local jail, from which a DEA team would take them into custody later in the evening or the next day. It had been the DEA team that had taken Abagor the first time, the time when Carina rescued Sarah.

Sarah sat on a hay bale in the barn next to Chuck. She had told him it would be best to be quiet and volunteer nothing, and he had done as she advised. But there was so much unspoken between them that neither could relax. Each kept looking at the other, neither seemed clear on how much, if any, distance should be between them.

Eventually, they sat a few inches apart and watched Carina exert her mesmeric charm.

Carina had spoken to Pavlov before the locals arrived, and she had made it clear to him that if he wanted to keep Jackie out of this, he should simply accept what was about to happen. Unless Abagor or the men told the authorities otherwise, Pavlov could claim that his barn had been the unlucky choice of Abagor and his men for a place to hide.

Sarah was unsure the DEA would buy that story, but Pavlov seemed willing to risk it. He had Chandler, a good lawyer, evidently.

It looked as though Pavlov's manipulation of Jackie was caused by him being manipulated. He did seem to be concerned about his niece. For Sarah's part, as long as both Pavlov and Jackie kept their distance from her and from Chuck, she was not especially concerned about whether charges were brought against them.

ooOoo

A couple of hours later, Sarah, Chuck, and Carina were in the car, heading back to LA.

Chuck had called Ellie as soon as they found his phone, hidden in a utility cabinet in Pavlov's barn. Sarah sat in the backseat with Chuck, but the same awkwardness gripped them. Carina drove in silence for the entire time. Every now and then, she made eye-contact with Sarah in the rearview mirror, but Sarah looked away each time.

She was not sure how to get started talking to Chuck, and she was uneasy doing it with Carina listening. Sarah wanted what she was going to say to be for Chuck and Chuck alone.

At a pit stop, at a gas station, Carina grabbed Sarah while Chuck was in the bathroom. Carina gave Sarah a grim smile. "It was less tense in my damn coffin, Sarah. Talk to him. Touch him. Do something. You found him, you saved him. I thought the white flag was done with."

Sarah gazed at her friend. "I will. I'm just waiting for the right moment."

Carina's eyes softened but her smile remained grim. "Those girls, Sarah, in my story. After I came to and remembered them, we couldn't get the Mexican authorities into motion quickly. By the time we got to the compound, Juanita and Aida and her soldiers — and all those girls — were gone. Don't wait too long, Sarah. Tomorrow's wished-for, not promised."

The drive lasted two eternities — or so it seemed to Sarah.

_Forever and forever._

The fingers of her hand twitched. She wanted to reach out, take Chuck's hand, hold it: reassure herself, reassure him. She still did not know what his feelings were.

His conversation with Ellie had been atypically terse: "Yeah, Ellie; it's me. I'm fine. Yes, she did. No, she hasn't, not yet. See you soon. I should be back tonight, but let's talk tomorrow."

He had glanced at Sarah when he said 'she'. He was obviously talking about her. But his voice was detached, reportorial. She knew a million things were going on with him, inside him, but he was not sharing them, his face was their container, not their medium.

But she knew, from his glances at her, from the occasional, uncertain movements of his fingers, that although a million things were going on inside him, and although he was keeping them to himself, he was not _aiming _his closure at her, in some attempt to hurt her or redress some wrong she had done him.

He was thinking about what had happened, what he had seen. He was thinking about her. Her fear was that he would decide he was done thinking about her before she could tell him what she promised herself she would tell him.

But at last, at _long _last, Carina dropped them at their apartments. Carina said a quick goodbye, and promised Sarah she would get in touch with her tomorrow. She said goodbye to Chuck. He thanked her. She gave him a shrugging smirk, then a genuine, warm smile, and drove away.

Sarah and Chuck walked side-by-side to their side-by-side apartments.

Sarah forced herself to turn, speak to Chuck. "I'd like to talk if you're still willing to listen. I'll...I'll throw myself on the mercy of the court."

Chuck started to comment. He stopped. He started again. "No court, Sarah. No judge. I'm just a guy who'd like to know the truth about a girl, the real girl. About you."

_I want you to know. This is just...hard. _Sarah nodded. "Your place or mine?"

"How about mine?"

"Okay."

Chuck unlocked the door and led Sarah inside. The papers that had been strewn across his living room were stacked neatly on his desk. Sarah looked at him as he looked at the stack. "Ellie must've cleaned up."

He walked to the couch and pulled about section held closed by hidden velcro. He slipped his hand down into the back of the couch and felt around. A moment later, he pulled out a computer sleeve containing a computer, his laptop. Sarah had not thought about it at Pavlov's.

"My computer. My program." He gave Sarah a sneaky, half-guilty smile. "It's not on the computer at work. Even if he'd gotten the password, he'd never have gotten the program unless he found this computer and knew _its _password. I never expected anyone to try to take the program — but I'm no idiot."

Sarah shook her head. "No, Chuck, you are no idiot. Far, far from it"

He gave her a look like he was not entirely sure she believed her own words. "So, who was that guy, the Russian Incredible Hulk, the bolt cutting enthusiast? I had the feeling you knew him...from before."

Sarah felt her heart rate shoot up. She had planned to tell Chuck her story, but from the beginning. She had not expected to start with Abagor. _Seduction_.

She was answering before she knew it. "Yes, Carina and I had dealings with him before. His name is Abagor. He was supposed to be in prison. I expect Carina will find out about that and explain it to me tomorrow."

"So, Carina is DEA. I heard her talking, the locals talking, back at Pavlov's. Are you...Were you...DEA too?"

Sarah sat down on one end of the couch. Chuck sat on the other. Sarah had wanted to work up to seductions, terminations. But Chuck had pulled her right to one of the worst things.

"No, Chuck. For about a decade, until just before I came to LA, I was a Special Agent of the CIA."

Chuck held her gaze. "Wow, a spy, huh?"

Sarah started to nod but decided not to retreat into gesture. "Yes, a spy."

"What does the CIA have to do with the DEA?"

"Carina and I ended up working together years ago on a joint operation, CIA and DEA. We turned out to be a good team, and we ended up working together several more times, usually when terrorism was being funded by the sale of drugs. But Abagor was selling guns and drugs. I was in deep-cover. Abagor was my mark."

Chuck scrunched his face. "Your _mark_. Does that mean like your target?"

"Yes, sort of. I can speak Russian…" — she watched as one of Chuck's eyebrows rose — and Abagor was known to have...a thing...for blondes."

Chuck blinked. "A thing...like..._a thing_?"

"Yes, he was a...kind of a collector. My superiors, our superiors, mine and Carina's, in my case a man named Langston Graham…"

"The CIA Director himself?" Chuck asked.

"Yes, you know who he is?"

Chuck shrugged one shoulder. "Now and then I hide a newspaper inside my graphic novels."

Sarah chuckled and Chuck smiled. Some of her tension eased, although this was far from easy.

"So, Graham did what?"

"He and his DEA counterpart decided the best way to get inside Abagor's organization was...to present him with a blonde to add to his collection."

"A blonde. You?"

"Yes, me. I pretended to meet Abagor at a club in Miami."

Chuck held himself quite still. He carefully modulated his voice. "I take it this...meeting was not exactly a rom-com _meet-cute_?"

Sarah knew there was no way around this now. She would have to go through it, in its tawdry detail. "No, not unless the rom-com is...R-rated."

"So meeting him meant…?"

_Say it, Sarah. _"In the CIA, it's called 'seduction'. We are taught a series of classes on it in our training."

"So meeting him meant _seducing _him?"

"Yes, but the term is a technical term," Sarah explained. It doesn't mean activity that culminates in sex. It means getting the mark to believe that you are engaged in activity that will...eventually...culminate in sex. The term can be used more generally for any attempt to persuade a mark to comply with an agent's wishes, but typically it means…" - Sarah made a weak, summary gesture — "...what I said."

"So, you met Abagor in a Miami club and seduced him...You made him believe you would...eventually...have sex with him."

Sarah hated the word. "Yes."

Chuck exhaled a long slow breath. "And this was the sort of thing you did often as a CIA agent?"

"Often? No, but...often enough. If you have my skillset and...look like I do, it's not a rare sort of mission."

Chuck looked down at the seat of his couch, the empty stretch of it between them. Sarah waited. A cold, queasy feeling collected in her stomach. "Go ahead, Chuck. Ask."

He lifted his face. "So, how did you make him believe it."

"Clothes were a start, make-up. Very, very high heels and a very, very short skirt. That got his attention."

"Yes, it would."

"I was posing as a translator for an international bank. Bored, habitually clubbing. I...danced so as to make him...aware of me...more aware of me. He eventually started dancing with me, then between dances, he asked me to his table for drinks…"

Chuck's gaze had drifted down to the emptiness between them again. "I had a drink with him and then left, but made sure he knew how to contact me. I kissed him and I let his hands roam on me, just to make sure he did."

"And your hands?" Chuck asked quietly.

"They roamed a bit too. Not much but enough to make it seem like I would...eventually...you know."

Chuck stared at the couch. "I suppose it went on like that, with gradual...escalations?"

Sarah sighed — there was no way to make this seem good, no way to even make it seem endurable, not unless the ends justify the means.

_They don't. _

_If they did, you'd have chosen differently in Budapest, Sarah. You've never really believed that despite Graham's preaching it at you forever — despite his missionary fervor. _

_You are not a mere means, Sarah._

To reason in a means-end was to concede, at least tacitly, that such...means...required justification. They were ugly. Having to let that man, Abagor, touch her intimately, even briefly, above her clothes, was a violation, a trespass. Such touches should have been reserved for someone she wanted to touch her like that.

"Yes...with gradual escalations. The difficulty is...pacing. Allowing enough escalation to keep the mark believing things will culminate as he wants, but controlling the pace so as to allow you to do what needs to be done, mission-wise."

"And you did?"

"Yes, but it almost...fell apart. I had gotten Abagor to slip up, reveal where he had a cache of drugs. I got the information to Carina and her team, but then could not get away from Abagor. He figured out who I was, what I had been up to. He and his men had me trapped in a disused gas station...If Carina had not gotten there in time…"

Chuck looked up, paler than he had been in the barn when Abagor threatened him. "She saved you?"

"Yes, she did. Carina is good at her job."

"Say," Chuck asked, his color returning, and for a moment seeming more like himself, "does Morgan know?"

"No, she hasn't told him."

"I'd like to see that," he said, laughing almost to himself, looking over Sarah's shoulder at nothing, envisioning the scene.

After a moment, he refocused on Sarah. "So, your date-coach training, your 'acting/fashion' training — that was really your _seduction _training."

"Yes."

"So you were teaching me to _seduce_ Jackie?"

"No, Chuck. I mean, yes. I mean...I don't know what I mean. See, Chuck, I...was recruited into the CIA young. And I did not date in high school — we sort of talked about this at _The Come-What-May_ — so those classes were my introduction to 'romance'..."

Chuck gave her another hard to read look. "So, it was your training...and your experience...that caused you to say what you said in _Uniform_?"

Sarah took a turn staring at the empty section of the couch. "Yes, it was. I've been taught that...I've believed that…'love' was just a..._euphemism_ for 'lust'. I'm just beginning to understand that as a gross distortion of the facts...but I am just beginning."

"We're all perpetually beginners at love, Sarah, real love. Lust is easy — no pun intended. Love is complicated, demanding. It takes a lifetime to learn, I think." He paused. "Have you ever been in love, Sarah?"

_I'm beginning to think so, Chuck. _"No, not in the past. For a brief time, with an agent partner of mine, I thought that maybe it could be but I realize now that it was not love. He and I...His name was Bryce Larkin…"

Chuck sat back. "_Bryce Larkin_? The Bryce Larkin who went to Stanford?"

Sarah tried to remember. She and Bryce had shared little of their histories with each other but it did seem like he once mentioned the oddity of having a tree as a college mascot. Stanford. "Yes, Chuck, I'm pretty sure he went there. We didn't talk about our pasts. You knew him?"

"A little. He was well-known on campus. Handsome, a track star...um...popular with women. We had a class together, were teamed up on a project. I did all the work, but somehow, on the day of the project presentation, he managed to make it seem the other way around. I still think that the professor, that she was...well...interested in him. Maybe even sleeping with him. But her conviction that Bryce did the heavy lifting cost me. I ended up just below an 'A' in the course. The only 'B' I made at Stanford. That's been my little alphabet joke ever since: '_B' is for Bryce_.'"

Sarah shook her head. "Small world, huh?"

"Yeah, it is. _B is for Bryce_ is a spy. Weird." Chuck gazed into the distance again. "I figured he'd end up a corrupt accountant somewhere, ...bilking...lonely women. — Sorry. I shouldn't be taking shots at your old boyfriend."

"He was never that, Chuck. Not terminologically, and not in...romantic fact. We were...together...you know?..." — she dropped her voice, paused, and Chuck gave a slight nod, not looking into her eyes, as she was not looking into his, — "...but we were never a couple. We were agents first, and...whatever else we were..a distant...second." Sarah took a breath. "It was difficult, given my training...and my experience...to see that anything was missing. But it was...what we had was never more than second-best, second-place, second-hand. I guess for me too, _B is for Bryce._" She hazarded a smile and was relieved when Chuck joined her in it.

After a moment, Chuck's expression grew more serious. "The woman I dated in college. The man I caught her with…"

"It was _Bryce_?"

"No, no. But it was one of his fraternity brothers, a buddy of his. Didn't make me more fond of Bryce, though."

Silence fell on them for a moment.

"Sarah, the _seductions_...How did you feel about them?"

"I hated them," she said immediately, vehemently, not aware herself, until that moment, just how true that was. "But I...hid that fact from myself, or tried to, for years. I don't mean I ever thought I liked them...I never thought that...But for a time, I tried to convince myself that I could treat myself, my body, as another tool on my tool belt…" She shook her head.

"Other agents talked that way, Graham talked that way, my seduction instructor talked that way. Carina talks...used to talk...that way. But that's confused." Sarah slowed, reflecting, hunting for words. "I'm not _just _my body — but I am my body. What happens to my body happens to me. What I let happen to it I let happen to me. My body...is not a...disguise. An agent is not...a ghost in a machine." Sarah stopped, searched Chuck's face. "Seductions ate away at me, at my sense of myself. Alienated me from me, from my own body. — Does that make any sense, Chuck?"

He smiled at her. A sad, kind smile. "Yeah, yeah, it does. And I'm sorry, Sarah, sorry that you had to do...that. I see how it would make you question...your own reality, the reality of intimacy, of romance, of love. It would have to feel like...please forgive my phrasing," a preparatory wince, "being your own pimp."

Sarah nodded softly. Silence fell on them again.

"I'm sorry, Chuck, for what I said in _Uniform_, about your interest in Jackie."

"Already forgiven, Sarah. But I understand better now. But, given what you told me back at Pavlov's barn, I guess Jackie was _seducing _me?"

Sarah nodded. "Yes, although, to be fair to her," — _I don't want to be fair to her _— "I believe she does actually like you. It wasn't all manipulation. But you'd have to talk to her." _Please don't talk to her. _

"I suppose," Chuck said, holding out the last word. "So, how did you end up in the CIA so early?"

"That takes some explaining. It all started when my dad and mom separated…The separation was largely the result of my dad's...career..."

A knock sounded at the door. "Chuck?" It was Ellie's voice.

"Excuse me, Sarah." Chuck stood up and went to the door, opened it. "Hey, El."

"Chuck," Ellie said, pushing past Chuck, not noticing that he had not really stood aside in invitation, "I know you said we'd talk tomorrow but we should talk now…"

Ellie halted both her speech and her steps when she saw Sarah on the couch. "Oh, Sarah. I saw Chuck's light and didn't realize you were here."

Sarah stood up. "Yeah, Ellie, Chuck and I were...are...having a talk."

"Oh. Oh!" Ellie turned and looked at Chuck, examining him. "Well, he doesn't look any the worse for wear. I'll come back tomorrow." She started toward the door. Chuck followed her. Sarah sat back down. She could hear Chuck talking to Ellie at the door. They were whispering, but a trick of the acoustics made what they said audible. Sarah was not trying to listen, but she heard.

"You're really okay, Chuck?"

"Yes, Ellie. I'm fine. No harm done. I will fill you in on it tomorrow."

"Is Carina okay? Sarah looks okay."

"She's...well, she's better than okay, Ellie. She _saved_ me. I can't go into it now, but she...she was like...a comet, a shooting star...the way she showed up…" Chuck's whisper made his awe more apparent.

"Brother of mine," Ellie said, a teasing _tsk-tsk_ in her voice, "you have fallen for a...complicated woman. And you have fallen, you know. It was clear the first time you told me about her."

There was a pause, a slender second. "I know," Chuck conceded. "And she may be...too much...too complicated for me. I'm a pretty simple guy."

"I don't know. The two of you remind me of each other."

"What do you mean?"

"Each of you knows less about himself or herself than about anyone else. Listen to her, Chuck. I don't pretend to understand her — but I do know you. If you care for her, then she's absolutely worth caring about. Even given her past career. I trust your heart; you should too."

"You know about the CIA? I sorta thought she must have told you."

"Just that she was an agent and a good one. Otherwise, I would've called the police, Chuck. She asked me to give her a chance to find you. I did. She did."

"I've got to get back to her, Ellie."

"Okay."

Sarah heard the door close. _A shooting star. _Chuck wore a blush when he returned; Sarah wore one to welcome him back. She could feel the glow in her cheeks.

But then: _Too much...too complicated._

"Sorry," Chuck offered. "She's...um...hard to get rid of sometimes. The mother part eclipses the sister part…and she can't let go."

"It's okay, Chuck. She's just looking out for you, concerned for you. That must be great. I've really never had anyone who felt about me like that, who truly put me first."

Emotions crowded together in Chuck's eyes. She saw him start to reach for her then drop his hand. But when he sat back down on the couch, the emptiness between them was smaller.

He was closer. Sarah took another breath and launched on the sad tale of her Dickensian, Oliver Twisted childhood, her handsome Fagin father.

ooOoo

As she finished that story of her childhood up to Graham's 'recruitment', Chuck shook his head. "But Sarah, surely you know you are not to blame for any of that. You were a child, not responsible. He was responsible."

"Yes, for a time that was true, Chuck. But a time came when I reached the...age of decision. I knew what he was doing, what I was helping him do, what I was doing was wrong, and I went on doing it anyway."

"No, that's not right, Sarah. You keep on doing it, and yes, you knew it was wrong, I believe you, but you weren't choosing it as your father chose it. You, I could hear it in your voice, — you choose it because you wanted to be with him, because he was the only family you had, because you wanted him to love you…"

Sarah closed her eyes, then opened them. "Yes, that's true, I suppose, but it's no excuse."

"Maybe not in the sense that it renders you blameless, but surely it is a mitigating factor, it makes you less to blame. And then this Graham comes along and effectively steps into your father's place. To use your comparison, a Fagin, but a particularly deadly one, with a giant network and vast resources, and he just keeps the ball rolling, gives you no chance to stop, regroup, rethink. He just pushes you forward. Onward, onward. And, I'd bet he intended it. With your father in jail, his spot, so to speak, was empty. Graham just took it over, usurped it. You had no chance. He used your past to trap you in the future he wanted for you, for himself…"

Sarah overwhelmed by Chuck's conviction, his anger — at her father, at Graham. He had grown more and more obviously upset as her story had unfolded.

She'd never thought of Graham as her father's replacement, as a father-figure; the men were too different, their entrances into her life too different, but she could see Chuck's point. She had no idea how she had missed it, in fact. How much of what she did for Graham was done out of a lingering desire to please and habit of pleasing her father?

Sarah sat still for a moment. "You're right about Graham, Chuck. I guess he did take my father's place and use it to his advantage, used it against me. But your phrase, ' a particularly deadly Fagin': that's right too."

Chuck sank back a bit, his anger receding. "What? What do you mean?"

"Chuck, I like you. I want to date you. I hope I can...become your girlfriend. But I want you to know the girl you are getting, the type of girl you are getting." _The whole snarl of twine. The complicated mess that I am. _

_Too much. _"Seduction, lying — those weren't the only...jobs...I did for Graham." _Spit it out. He's still listening, still listening after Abagor and your dad. _"I killed people, Chuck."

"In self-defense, right?"

Sarah felt the color drain from her face. _Too much. The final straw. _"Not really, Chuck. I just killed them. Terminated them."

"Terminated?" Chuck said the word as if it were a borrowing from a foreign tongue, a novelty. "Terminated?"

"Toward the end of my time in the CIA, Chuck, I was Graham's assassin."

"Assassin?" Chuck's face became as colorless as Sarah knew hers to be. "You mean...Like, with a rifle and scope?"

"Yes. Or a knife. Or an explosive."

Chuck seemed to have stopped breathing. His eyes were fixed on her face but he seemed not to see her, not to see anything.

"It was only a few times, Chuck — as if the number mattered. But I couldn't go on with it, it was killing me. Chuck?"

He finally looked at her. He did so for a long, long time. She endured the look but without returning it. She kept her eyes on his vacant spot on the emptiness between them. Two more eternities. _Forever and forever. _

Chuck stood up and walked to his bedroom.

He did not look back. He did not explain. He just shut the door quietly.

* * *

A/N: Two chapters to go. Thoughts?

Tune in next time for Chapter Thirteen, "A Mystery to Me".


	13. Mystery to Me

A/N: Sorry about the painful pause...

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Thirteen: A Mystery to Me

* * *

When Chuck's bedroom door clicked closed, Sarah closed her eyes, but too late to stop tears. He had walked away from her. It had been too much, too complicated. She had been too much, too complicated. She had wrecked it all from the beginning.

She never had a chance.

And then she heard the bedroom door open. She looked up. Chuck was coming out of the room, a small acoustic guitar in one hand, a gathered blanket in the other. Balancing precariously atop the blanket was a leather-covered box.

Chuck saw her tears. "Oh, Sarah, I'm sorry. Did you think?"

"No, Chuck, I just got scared. I should have...known better." Relief flooded her, coursed through her veins, her momentary life-blood.

"I'm so sorry, I just made up my mind about something, and I wanted to do it before I lost my nerve. I got over myself last night...and I planned to surprise you with...well, with one of these things today. But then I got...kidnapped."

He sat down on the end of the couch and propped the guitar against the coffee table carefully. Then he unfolded the blanket. He half-stood, and he draped it around Sarah. She knew she was staring. She had no idea what was happening. Once she was beneath the blanket, Chuck sat back and surveyed his handiwork. "Good, I know you must be exhausted from earlier today, and from...telling me all that."

Before she could respond, he picked up the guitar. "Remember, after we saw the Neil Diamond exhibit, I told you that I wrote a song?"

"Yes," Sarah said slowly, "you wrote one for Jackie, right?"

"Wrong. I wrote one for you. And I decided last night that I was going to get over being angry with you and play you the song, no matter what. Not because it's so great or anything, or because I am any guitar virtuoso. But I wanted you to know that you have been on my mind from the beginning. I had the basic idea the night after we met. I…" He strummed the guitar softly. "I wrote the rest of it after our first date-coach date."

"Date?" Sarah asked, wiping her cheeks finally, smiling.

"For me. After I met you, I was not interested in Jackie, but I was afraid that if I approached you directly…"

"Play the song for me, Chuck."

He turned his attention to the guitar. Without looking at her, he said, "It's called _A Mystery to Me_." He started.

_She won't say yes, she won't say no,  
__She just can't stop, fear she's gonna go,  
__Glancing over her shoulder, wonder what she sees?  
__She's unignorable — but she's a mystery to me_

_She won't explain, she won't come clean  
__Haunted and exotic, wonder what she's seen?  
__Dancing in my arms, no clue what she needs.  
__She's unforgettable — but she's a mystery to me_

_She's a mystery to me,  
__Available and distant:  
__She's a mystery to me,  
__Loved her in an instant_

_She won't refuse, she won't agree,  
__Says "One, if by land, two, if by sea",  
__She hangs her lanterns where I can't see  
__She's all-revereable — but she's a mystery to me_

_She's a mystery to me,  
C__aught in contradiction:  
__She's a mystery to me,  
__Cure for my condition:_

_She's a mystery to me,  
__Precious mystery, Precious mystery,  
__She's a mystery to me…_

Sarah couldn't breathe. Her heart was bursting in her chest.

The song was bouncy, fun. It stopped and started. The words made her laugh and made her cry at the same time. It was unfathomably sweet to her. He had written it for her. For her.

_Loved her in an instant._

He finished and put the guitar down. He seemed reluctant to look at her directly, although she saw him sneak a glance.

"Chuck." She said his name for the first time believing he was for her and she was for him. "Chuck, thank you...thank you so much. That was the...nicest thing anyone has ever done for me, and for you to do it now, after what I told you…"

Chuck scooted across the empty space on the couch. In response, Sarah held open up the edge of her blanket and he scooted against her. She pulled the blanket over, tucked it around him with one arm and put her other arm around his shoulders. She put her head on his shoulder, fighting back tears.

He took her hand, the one around holding the blanket. "Sarah, what you told me...it matters to me of course, and I will need some time to get my mind wrapped around it, but it didn't change how I feel, how I've felt, from the beginning. Since yesterday, since the barn today, I've been...I got a little overwhelmed, I admit, but...Ellie straightened me out. I just had to do what she told me...at the door. _Trust. _You — _but me too._

"You _do_ have someone who...truly cares about you, who is willing to put you first. _Me. _Your life has been hard, I know. I will do all I can to make it easier for you. These...difficult...things you've carried for so long — I'm here to help, to carry them for you, to share the burden…for my girlfriend."

Sarah pulled herself against Chuck, pulled Chuck closer. "Really, Chuck, _I'm_ the girl you want for your girlfriend?"

"If you'll have me?"

"If _I'll _have _you? _Of course, I will. I want _you_, Chuck."

"The song was what I decided to give you last night. This is what I decided to give you just a few minutes ago." Chuck let go of her hand and leaned forward. He picked up the leather-covered box.

"What is it?"

Chuck opened the box. Inside was a golden bracelet, a charm bracelet, beautifully made, fine traceries, delicate filigree. The charms were various. Sarah did not have a chance to focus on them before Chuck took it out of the box. He took her hand and fastened the bracelet around her wrist.

"Chuck?" Her voice was hushed.

"This was my mom's. Her favorite piece of jewelry. She wore it constantly; Dad gave it to her. As a boy, I loved to look at it. In her will, she left it to me. I wasn't sure why until...until I met you. I want you to have it..."

"But, Chuck, no, it's too much…"

"You know," he went on, undeterred, "I never could bring myself to give it to Jill. I kept thinking I would, that the moment would come, but I...It never felt quite right. I thought it would, eventually, that we just needed more time. Maybe I should have been more worried about that."

"But Chuck, we've only known each other...well, for less than two weeks. We've never gone on an official date. I just told you...things about myself...things I'm desperately ashamed of, guilty about. The life I've lived…"

"'Lived', Sarah, 'lived', not 'live'. But you have a new life now, a new apartment. And now a new...new-to-you...bracelet...from your new boyfriend." She gazed at the bracelet, noticed stars among the charms. She thought about Chuck's song.

"My _songwriting_ boyfriend…" Sarah said, looking at Chuck with a growing smile, "but, 'all-revereable'? That was...cute, especially after the lanterns."

Chuck shook his head. "Always good to work a Revolutionary War reference into a love song."

"_Love song_?"

Chuck's face blazed red. "I...That was, you know, a manner of speaking."

"But wasn't there a line like that in the song? Something about 'in an instant'?"

"That was...um...for the rhyme."

"And no do-wops?" She bumped his shoulder.

"Um...no, I decided against them, though I did consider some _hey-nonnie, nonnies_."

"Probably right to leave them out. So, _for the rhyme_?"

He glanced away. "Yeah."

Sarah had put her head back on Chuck's shoulder. She giggled quietly and raised herself and kissed his cheek. "Thanks for...the rhyme. And remember, although I didn't write a song, I couldn't sleep that night either. I actually read a book, a few pages of one, anyway."

Chuck turned to her. "What book?"

Sarah felt her blush. "It's called _How to Love._"

Neither spoke for a while.

Sarah felt her head rise and fall slightly with each breath of Chuck's. The charm bracelet felt comfortable on her wrist. The words of Chuck's song replayed in her head. She felt herself smile even as she fell asleep.

She woke later, in Chuck's arms. He was carrying her to the bedroom. She put her arms around his neck and snuggled closer. He managed to pull back the blankets with one hand and then to put her down gently. He took off her shoes and her socks with a deliberate reverence. She watched through half-closed eyes as he went back to the living room. He returned with the guitar and the blanket. He put the guitar in a stand, then closed the bedroom door. He hung the blanket on a hook on the back of it. He kicked off his shoes and got in the bed on the other side, his clothes on.

Sarah rolled over against him, pillowing her head on his chest. She felt him stroke her hair. He started singing the song again to her, low, slow and quiet. She listened again.

She did not understand this man. _He's a mystery to me. Precious mystery. _He had eternity inside him. And as she listened to the words, she knew he believed she did too.

She believed it. _Eternity inside me._

A swell of deep joy pulled her under as she let herself succumb to sleep.

ooOoo

She woke to the smell of coffee. Chuck was up, and she could hear him in the kitchen. She heard another voice too. Ellie. And still another, Carina. They were chatting, laughing quietly. Sarah got up and straightened her clothes, brushed her fingers through her hair, and left the bedroom.

Chuck, Ellie, and Carina were standing in the kitchen, each holding a mug of steaming coffee. They looked at Sarah as she came from the bedroom. Each wore a smile, but each smile was different. Chuck's brimmed with...love, Ellie's with happiness, Carina's with satisfaction,

"So, Blondie rises, like the sun, but more slowly," Carina quipped, her satisfied smile turning to a teasing grin. "I came to see you this morning, to see about you. I knocked on your door but Chuck answered his. He said you spent the night."

"Yes," Sarah agreed, deciding against any attempt at an explanation, "I did."

Chuck had poured her a cup of coffee and she took it, took a sip from it. Sarah laughed. "Now, how about the three of you stop staring at me?"

Chuck responded. "That's my cue. I'm going to go pick up some pastries. Back in a few minutes." He stepped toward Sarah and gave her a quick kiss. A moment later he was out the door.

Ellie turned back to Sarah after watching Chuck leave. "I don't know what happened last night, and I'm not asking for details, but that is one happy man, Sarah."

A huge smile overtook Sarah's face. "And I am one...happy...woman." _When have I ever said that, thought that? Happy? Yes, happy. _"Your brother was...a perfect gentleman."

"Damn," Carina interjected. "I _was_ going to ask for details."

Ellie laughed. "I was up early, concerned...well, _nosey_...about what happened. I saw Chuck invite Carina in, and so I came over…"

The three women moved into the living room and sat down, Carina in an armchair, Sarah and Ellie on the couch. For a quiet moment, they enjoyed their coffee.

"So, Sarah, did you...tell him, have _the talk_?" Carina asked the question and Elie sat up a bit.

Sarah smiled. "I did, Carina. I actually did. I told him about me. Not the details, but...the essentials."

"I take it he did not run screaming for the hills?"

"No, I thought for a moment that he would...that he had...but, no. I told him and then he wrapped me in a blanket, played me a song...a song he wrote for me, then he gave me this." She extended her arm, showing the charm bracelet that had been beneath her sleeve.

"Oh, Sarah," Ellie whispered, clearly moved by seeing the bracelet on Sarah's wrist, "I didn't know if he'd ever give that to anyone. I mean, I prayed he wouldn't give it to Jill, and, thank God, he didn't. But…" Ellie choked up.

Carina stood and came to look more closely at the bracelet. "It's beautiful, Sarah." A glint came into her eye, and with a half-smile, she added, "Just the kind of thing some fool in love would wear."

Sarah did not blink. "I know."

Carina's smile grew full, her eyes softened. "Good for you, girl." She went back to her seat but did not sit down. She picked up her coffee mug. "I'm going to take my leave of you, seeing as how all is well. Morgan and I are meeting for a putt-putt pancake breakfast."

"What?" Ellie said. "A putt-putt pancake breakfast?"

"Miniature golf and silver dollar pancakes — that's how Morgan billed it. He's off today, and I am too, so we're going to hang out."

Carina returned her mug to the kitchen. "We'll probably be looking to have dinner later. Any chance you and Chuck could meet us somewhere," Carina then shifted focus from Sarah to Ellie, "and you and Devon?"

Ellie nodded. "We're both free tonight. We can make it."

"I can check with Chuck when he gets back, but, yes, provisionally. Sounds like fun," Sarah said, smiling at her friend.

"Okay, well, we can finalize plans by phone later. See you, ladies. Tell Chuck I said _bye._"

Carina left. Ellie looked from the door back to Sarah. "Is there something going on between her and Morgan, because, if so, that's just...odd."

Sarah laughed. "Well, they really have become friends. I get the feeling that Morgan is the kind of guy who knows when someone needs a friend and knows how to be one."

"You know, Sarah, for all the grief I give to Morgan, and all the grief I have given Chuck about Morgan, that's true. I don't know if Chuck would've gotten through losing our parents if not for Morgan. There's more to Morgan than meets the eye."

Sarah laughed. "Carina too."

They sipped their coffee.

"Ellie," Sarah began after a few moments, "I...overheard you at the door with Chuck yesterday, what you said about me being...complicated. It's true, I'm...sort of a mess, and I'm worried that I will...mess Chuck up too."

Ellie grinned. "'Overheard'? I guess I'm going to have to get used to Chuck's girlfriend being a spy...an ex-spy."

"No, Ellie, really I just...overheard, I wasn't spying…"

"Oh, Sarah, I know. Just teasing you. — And everyone is sort of a mess, Sarah. _Mess_ everyone's normal madness." Ellie sighed, began again, holding Sarah's eyes, "I can imagine that you've had to make...difficult choices, do hard things, in your previous life. As a doctor, I have some familiarity with that, with how actions, even if they were necessary, can scar you, get into your system, stay with you.

"At night, I sometimes see the faces of patients I've lost. I don't know why people don't understand that even if what you do is the right thing, doing it can still scar you, haunt you.

"I had a patient once, a wonderful woman. She had a brain tumor. We fought it for a long time, but I couldn't operate on it, too deep in her brain, and it was not long responsive to any treatment. Although I tried not to get personally involved, I did. In the end, she slipped into a coma. She had a living will and left clear instructions. I was the one who shut down the life-support. Turned off the machines. I still think about that moment, the button under my finger, suffer through it, even though it was the right thing to do, even though it was what she wanted."

Ellie sighed again, then set her shoulders, brightened, still serious but less grave. "We all have ghosts, Sarah. Everyone's life is haunted. The only way to exorcise them is to learn to live with them, to live past them: otherwise, they'll chase you out of your own life, and there is nowhere else to run to, you know?"

Sarah nodded, then a smile grew on her face, small, medium, then large. "Thanks, Ellie — and wow, that was articulate for an early morning speech. That was...quite a segue from hospital drama to scary movie."

Ellie chuckled, brightening more, welcoming Sarah's teasing. "It's too early for unmixed metaphors. I guess...what I'm trying to say...is that Devon helps me with my ghosts and I help him with his. You and Chuck can, will, learn to do the same. It's what you do when…" Ellie came to a self-conscious halt.

"When..._what_?"

"When you love someone," Ellie said, hesitation on her face. "Sorry, that's me, speaking out of turn."

"No, Ellie...it's okay."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Ellie, it's okay...really."

ooOoo

Chuck arrived a few minutes later and the three of them had more coffee — and pastries. Ellie left later, after the pastries, and another pot of coffee were gone. Sarah could not remember a better morning, feeling like she was _somewhere, _instead of _nowhere, _and that she _belonged_, was not an outsider, an interloper, a new girl, a spy.

After Ellie left, Sarah climbed into Chuck's lap and kissed him, coffee-and-pastry-and-thank-you kisses that grew more heated, more filled with desire, yearning.

She made herself pull away at last. She needed a shower. They both needed time to decompress, and to process the past twenty-four hours.

After one final kiss, she went next door to her apartment. She shed her clothes and turned on the shower. Standing in the hot water, she let her mind wander, her heart expand.

Chuck was a mystery to her. That was itself a meta-mystery. Her father's only real skill was reading people, and she had inherited that skill, refined it under his tutelage, and refined it still more at the Farm, under Graham's. _Why is Chuck a closed book? He is not a dissembler, a liar. What is the problem?_

_—That's the problem. Only it isn't really a problem. It's a blessing. _

_The skill I've been taught and refined over so many years is predicated on something false in relation to Chuck. It is predicated on the self-interest, the vice, of the person I am trying to read. _

_My dad had said, and I took this only to be self-justification, but maybe there was a certain truth in it, — my dad had said that you could only con a con, that confidence games worked reliably only on the vices of others, not on their virtues. Confidence games work because people are greedy, want to get rich quick, want a free lunch, ...because they have some agenda or other, some corner to cut. _

_Graham taught me to look for, to see the same._

_Chuck is agenda-free, honest. The presupposition I worked under blinded me to what was right in front of me, barely disguised, constantly hinted at — namely, how much Chuck cares for me and has from the beginning. I couldn't see it because I had been squinting, not just looking with open eyes, because I expected something hidden, not something revealed. The thing I wanted was right in front of me, the man I wanted, the right man, just waiting for me to choose him. _

_Maybe, if I open my eyes and keep them open, I can see Chuck, and see what he sees. _

_Stars, eternity inside._

She finished her shower and went and put XTC's _We're All Light _on repeat. _I need Chuck to record my song. _The wonder of it struck her. _My song._

She dabbed on a bit of makeup, and dried and brushed out her hair. She put on a yellow dress, a tan sweater, brown boots. Her new bracelet. Then she called Chuck and asked him out for the day — on a date. She had an idea now how to do that, have a real date with the right man.

He said _yes_.

* * *

A/N: I know that in the previous chapter I left our heroine in a bad spot, and the reader. But I knew I would be back in twenty-four hours or so to make it right.

I admit that I like to achieve moments of character/reader consonance, moments in which the reader feels (to a degree) what the character feels, shares it, instead of merely intellectually recognizing what the character feels, or undergoing a qualitatively distinct emotional response to what the character feels. Chuck's door closed on both Sarah and the reader.

Yes, I know the show's bracelet was not gold.

By the way, the song, _Mystery to Me_ is my own; I wrote it for the story. I'm going to post a link on the Chuck Fanfiction FB page to a rough audio sketch of it I recorded on my phone, if you'd like to hear it. Don't expect much; it's simply an aid to the imagination. (I will post it on my tumblr account too: fragmentsofruin.)

The next chapter will take on us Chuck and Sarah's first official date. _Thoughts? Reactions?_ Love to hear from you as always.


	14. I Am, I Said

A/N: What started as the first half of the chapter grew into the whole chapter.

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Chapter Fourteen: I Am, I Said

* * *

Sarah stood at Chuck's door, unable to keep from herself from moving, from motion.

Dancing.

She had knocked and now she was waiting. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, dancing, half out of impatience — half out of response to the music inside her.

_I was lost._

_Was._

_Now I'm found. _

_I am. _

_There was no there in my there. _

_No matter where I was, I was not there._

_Was not._

_Now I'm here. _

_Here._

_Now._

_Me._

The door opened and Chuck stood in front of her. He had on the navy suit she had chosen for him at _Uniform. _But his shirt was open-necked; there was no tie. He looked as amazing as she had predicted. The alterations made the fit perfect.

He was perfect. Perfect. She wanted to look only at him, think only about him. For once, she was not worried about herself, not spending energy keeping herself from herself. She was for him. She was _all_ for him.

"When did you get the suit?"

Chuck looked down at himself as if just discovering what he was wearing. "Oh, Devon picked it up for me the other day...You know, I bought this...for you...I bought it because….I was hoping to wear it on a date with you, you know."

"I do...now. It looks...you look...It…_Wow_."

Chuck gave her a quick, wide grin, bowing a little. "Thank you. And you look…" — he gestured to the yellow dress — "...well, English seems exhausted when it comes to words for how you look."

"This from the man who used 'all-revereable' in a song lyric?"

"Um...yeah, but that's only sort of a word — you won't find it in most dictionaries."

Sarah laughed, enjoying how whole and light and excited she felt. Chuck stepped out of the doorway and closed the door. "So, where are we going, Miss Walker?"

"I thought we would go to Griffith Park, maybe to the Observatory. I'd thought we could enjoy the view. Get a little...perspective?" She raised one eyebrow cautiously.

Chuck nodded eagerly. "I like it there and haven't been in a long time."

Sarah put out her hand and Chuck took it. They walked together to her car. He looked at it and looked at her as she circled the front to get inside. "So, what's the story on the Porsche? I mean, I know there are things you can't tell me, conditions on your resignation from the CIA. But is this...was this a…" he leaned toward her, lowering his voice "...spy car? Does it have a rocket launcher or squirt grease out of the rear, or come with its own theme song?" He started humming some spy-sounding music.

Sarah felt a twinge of apprehension, of her old need to keep everyone, including herself, in the dark about herself.

But instead of doing as her apprehension demanded, she relaxed and let it wash over her, then vanish. She had been who she had been. _Had been_. She was starting over, neither denying her past nor simply continuing it. She had turned, changed: she had repented of, confessed her past. She had confessed it to the man she was with and he had not abandoned her. Instead, he had given her his most precious possession, his way of telling her that he treasured her.

_Me. His treasure_.

_Lost and Found._

Sarah laughed as the apprehension passed. "No, it's not a spy car. It's just a Porsche."

He raised an eyebrow. "_Just _a Porsche?"

They got in and Sarah answered as she clicked her seat belt. "Right, not just a _Porsche_. I suppose you could say it was my one indulgence…You see, Chuck, my time in the CIA was...frantic, mostly. I dreaded downtime, stops in or especially in-between missions. I needed objectives, ends to focus on as a way of...obscuring...the means. I got paid, reasonably well, but I lived almost entirely on expense accounts, operational monies. So, my checks got deposited but the money mostly went untouched. You moved me in — you've seen the sum total, a suitcase, and a few boxes, of my worldly goods…"

She started the car and they left the parking lot. "Speaking of which," Sarah continued, her tone shifting, "I still need to get a bed. Can we see about that today?"

Chuck pulled out his phone. "Do you trust Morgan?"

"What?"

"The guy who runs Large Mart is a friend of Morgan's. If you tell me what you want, I can tell Morgan and he can tell Rick, the Large Mart guy. Rick'll deliver it. Morgan can call the rental manager and he can let them in, make sure it gets put in place. The manager knows Morgan. He's around so often he might as well live there."

"That'd be great. I am tired of couches. Last night was the best night of sleep I've had in...forever." She felt her cheeks color and saw Chuck's smile.

She told him what she had in mind for a bed, nothing fancy, and he called Morgan.

When he finished, he put his phone away. "Morgan's out with Carina — said something about Go-Kart racing?"

Sarah shook her head.

"But he said he'd call Rick and get the ball rolling. Should be delivered and set up by late this afternoon."

"Wow, it's good to have friends in high places."

"Short friends in high places," Chuck added, then laughed silently.

Sarah saw it out of the corner of her eye. "I was just thinking about Morgan dancing with Carina. She's my short friend's high place."

"He's in real trouble, you know," Sarah said with faux-concern.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. She stoops to conquer."

Chuck laughed aloud. "Goldsmith?"

Sarah grinned at him for a second before returning her attention to the road. "I may not know much popular culture, but I'm not entirely ignorant of art."

"Evidently. I'm so going to enjoy getting to know you, girlfriend Sarah."

Sarah's smile was immediate, involuntary; it spread wide. "I'm so going to enjoy getting to be known by you, boyfriend Chuck. And getting to know you."

In the following silence, they both re-heard their own words and glanced away from each other.

"Um...So," Chuck asked, adjusting himself in his seat, "you were saying about the Porsche?"

"Oh, yeah...right." Sarah touched the brakes to adjust the speed. "Once, between missions...a particularly dark downtime between missions...I decided to buy something for myself, something of my own. I felt like the Company owned me, owned everything around me, everyone, everything. On the mission, I...burned an asset. 'Burned', that means…"

"I've got a good idea of what it means, Sarah."

"Right. Well, the asset, she was a decent person — most assets aren't, and despite my attempts to avoid it, over time she and I...became friends. She was about my age. Other than Carina, I really didn't have any friends, and it had been months since I had seen Carina.

"But the time came to cut ties with the asset, and I did — I did what I was supposed to do. But it...hurt me, hurt her, hurt me to hurt her. I lied, of course; I told her that our friendship was just part of my cover, fake, that I was never really friends with her. Anyway, after that mission, I just wanted _something_, something of mine that was not _inside _the spy life, something not subject to its...reverse-Midas touch. Something not leaden, gray."

She paused. "One of the last cons I pulled with my dad involved a shady high-end car dealer. I'll spare you the details, for now, but during that con, I drove one of these, and it thrilled me. I felt free.

"After burning my asset I went out looking to find one of these cars, to recapture that feeling. I found this one. It was used but immaculate. I bought it. Since then, it's been the closest thing I've had to...a home, a place where I felt a little like myself, my only temporary refuge from spying."

Chuck reached over and took her hand. He said nothing; he just caressed the back of her hand. They rode on, happy to be in contact, to be driving in the golden rays of the early fall midday.

At the Park, Sarah found a spot and stopped the car. Before Chuck could get out, she put her hand on his shoulder. He turned to her and she kissed him, pulling him to her, against her, the kiss steadily deepening. He turned his body to her as much as he could and put one hand behind her neck, one at the base of her back.

She thought she would suffocate with a desire unlike any she had ever known, a quiver, a quake ran through her, her heart filled her, extended to and filled every part of her, rendering her sensitive beyond anything she could recall: every touch, every moment of the kiss deep and indelible.

She felt Chuck's answering tremors.

They pulled apart, smiling at each other, each breathless.

"Okay. Okay," Chuck chanted, "We should probably get out of the car."

Sarah laughed happily. "Yes, I suppose so. Okay."

They got out and strolled along, holding hands, swinging their joined hands. Sarah kept peeking at Chuck, still not sure if this was real, that she had come out of the other side of her fears and found him still there, steadfastly there.

They walked to a spot from which they could enjoy the view, LA, Hollywood, the Pacific. They stood for a time looking out, still holding hands.

"It's amazing, the view from up here," Sarah said softly.

"Have you been here before?"

Sarah nodded once, hesitantly. "Yes, once. In the dark, late, after hours, with no time to look out at the Basin," she said, motioning toward the wide expanse below them. "I guess I saw the lights but didn't look at them." She was unsure whether to go on. Chuck did not press her.

She went on. "I was being chased. Two men, terrorists. I had been hunting them; they decided to hunt me. I was supposed to be meeting a contact but they had taken the contact, forced him into the call to me. I flew into LA, came here. I got...spooked...just in time. They separated, trying to take me. I got away, obviously. I captured them a few days later in northern California. I've seen a lot of the world like that, sidelong and headlong, seeing, never looking. No time to let anything leave a deep impression. Too risky."

"I used to come up here with my dad," Chuck offered. "We'd come at night, look through the telescopes. Talk. My dad was...odd. He never talked to me like I was a kid. We could talk about anything and he never dumbed down what he said or watered down his opinions. We'd talk about...ultimate things...casually."

"That sounds nice, Chuck."

"It was, but it probably misfit me for kids my own age. But I miss it, those talks. It was...well, like you said about the Porsche: in those talks with my dad, I felt _free_, overawed by the size and complexity, the sublimity, of _everything_, the universe, but somehow feeling equal to it, like I was inside it but it was also inside me...I don't know." He shook his head, dissatisfied by his words. "But I remember that feeling. It went missing for a long time," he glanced at her, "and it only showed back up...recently."

Sarah grinned and bumped his shoulder. "Cure for your condition?"

He kissed her cheek softly. "Unimpeachably."

She leaned her head on his shoulder, a question on her face. "And you're okay...or you're getting to be okay...with all of this. Me? The things I've told you?"

"Yes, but I do have one complaint." His teasing smile kept her from panicking. "I think this suit may be a bit much for the Observatory."

"Maybe we are a smidgen overdressed, but I can tell you that you've given a lot of the women up here something else to _observe._" A rankle of jealousy had passed through her as they walked along, the women looking at Chuck. "Am I going to have to be constantly worried about _Jackies_?"

"Well, I can only answer for my part in this Observatory phenomenon. I have eyes only for one woman, here or anywhere. The Jackies of the world are in permanent eclipse."

Sarah smiled. She was about to congratulate him on his good answer when her phone rang.

"Carina? Yes, I'm out with Chuck. A date. No, we did not bring Ellie along as our coach. No, we do not need you and Morgan to coach us. We're…" — she smiled at Chuck — "...we're doing just fine on our own. What? Dinner? Yes, that'd be great. 7 pm. You've talked to Ellie? She and Devon are coming. Great! See you then."

She ended the call. Chuck was grinning, clearly enjoying her side of the conversation. "So, dinner?"

"Yes, tonight. At a place Morgan recommends." Sarah sounded unsure.

"You can trust the bearded man where food is concerned, trust without qualification."

Chuck stepped to her and kissed her intensely. After he did, he looked around sheepishly.

"What is it, Chuck?"

"Well, one problem I never confessed to you when you were coaching me is that I am a bit PDA-shy. Normally. Or I used to be. But you, standing there, smiling like that, I had to kiss you. Had to."

"You should act on your impulses, Chuck." She smiled at him, allowing a hint of suggestiveness to appear in the smile. Chuck bit his lower lip and changed the subject.

"Say, did Carina tell you about the Russian hulk, the Abagor guy?"

"No, she told you?"

"Yes, before you woke up this morning, she told Ellie about yesterday...in general terms. Ellie just point-blank asked her if she was a spy, so she told Ellie a little about what she does. Then she told Ellie about Jackie and Pavlov and Abagor, about the barn."

"Really? But Ellie didn't say anything to me about it this morning. Even after Carina left…"

"No, after she got the basics from Carina, and she knew we were all safe, Ellie's focus was altogether on you being in my bedroom."

"Oh."

"No, no. She was happy. 'Overjoyed' is not too strong a word. But I guess she was worried about us, about you, about the conversation she interrupted last night. Her worry about that completely overshadowed any lingering anxiety about...the other stuff. No doubt, she'll want to hear all about it from you, but Carina told her about Abagor. Again, a little, not much. But she did say that he had escaped from prison, evidently with the help of a guard. The guard is in custody now too and Carina says Abagor is going to go back to prison and that she is sure he will remain there."

"Did Carina tell Ellie how I got...close to Abagor?"

"No, nothing like that."

Sarah softly blew out a breath. "Good, okay, good. I'll...tell her about that...sort of thing, I will...but I want to be the one who does it." Sarah's stomach twisted at the thought of that conversation but then she realized that it might be easier to talk about it with Ellie, woman to woman, than it had with Chuck, to Sarah's then-potential, now-_amazing!-_actual boyfriend.

She shrugged. "Knowing what Ellie knew and didn't know makes me even more grateful for the conversation we had this morning. She was just focused on me, really."

"She _likes_ you, Sarah. She's excited for me and for you, but also for herself. And I'm excited for me and for you, of course — and for her. She never cottoned to Jill. Not a bit. She tried to warn me but I didn't listen…"

"We'll see her tonight, Chuck. And we are friends already, Ellie and I. And I am dating her brother. And I am her neighbor. And I am not going anywhere."

"That's a lot of 'ands'," Chuck noted.

"Yes, _and_ I need to find a job."

"I've been thinking about that. The paperwork from Japan is in. It came while you were at your place this morning, before you called. And I plan to sign it tonight. I could use some help. _Ex-AV _is now officially in need of more employees."

"What, exactly, does your program do, Chuck?"

"It's an odd thing to explain. I probably need a pencil and paper." He shook his head."No, that probably won't help. — Sorry, let me start again. You know how sometimes, things you want to remember just stick, and sometimes, no matter how hard you try, it just won't."

Sarah nodded. "Yes, I guess...My memory has always been pretty good."

"Yeah, mine too," Chuck said with a shy grin, "but other folks aren't so lucky. My program helps to make the brain more retentive. Think of it as, um, softening the wax tablet of the mind, allowing impressions to be more easily, more accurately formed. — It's not a perfect image, of course, but it's sort of like that. A short-term enhancement of short-term memory."

"Chuck, that's _huge, _revolutionary...No wonder people want it!"

"No, no, it's not as huge as it sounds. There are limits on the sort of data that can be remembered and on how long it remains in the memory. It has to be packaged in a certain way. Right now, it's confined to visual images, photographs, printed pages, and it has to be taken in all at once. The memories last for maybe a day — in certain people, maybe as long as two days. Still, it has lots of potentials, and I have some ideas about the next-generation program. It could make a huge difference for people, even limited as it is. The Japanese company is an education software company, a good company...if perhaps a careless with hallway conversations...I need to talk to them about that. The owner worked with my dad, long ago."

Sarah nodded, although she wasn't sure about it all. "What kind of help do you need?"

"Someone to run the real-world side of the business, so I can devote myself to research. I'm going to move to another building, where I have more space. And I need someone with me who understands how...well, how _bad-guy-ery_ works. I obviously need help with that and my work might continue to attract attention."

"Yes, it might. So, if I understand, you are offering me a position as your Head of Operations/Head of Security?" She smiled at him and cocked her head.

"Well, yeah, — and Personal Bodyguard."

"Already accepted that last title, Chuck. Yesterday, in the barn."

"Yeah, I guess so. But the others?"

"Are you sure it's a good idea to hire your girlfriend?"

Chuck looked thoughtful. "I don't know. I thought it was...think it is. I have a feeling we'll work well together. Very well."

Sarah pursed her lips. "You are still thinking about _Ex-AV, _aren't you?"

"Um, yes, sure. I mean, of course. Yes….Sure. _Yes_."

Sarah's laughter bubbled up, burst. "Good. Because I'm sure we'll work very well together too."

Chuck cleared his throat after a spacy moment. "Good, good, that's good."

Sarah nodded. "It is. It will be." She blinked several times. "It will be."

She reached out to straighten the lapel on his jacket, irresistible impulse, then could not keep herself from going further, standing on her toes, and kissing him as intensely as he kissed her before.

When she pulled away, his eyes were closed.

"Chuck, Chuck, hello? Sarah to Chuck..."

He opened his eyes. "Sorry, kinda lost my spatio-temporal position. Do that again and we'll need an Observatory telescope to find me."

Sarah laughed. They walked until they found a spot to sit down, a bench.

"So, Chuck, whatever happened to Jill?"

Chuck shrugged. "Don't know, actually. We talked briefly, after graduation ceremonies. She and...that guy...Bryce's friend...hadn't lasted but a minute. We said the obligatory graduation stuff but it was just that, obligatory. 'I'll write', 'I'll call.' We said those things but neither of us did what we said. I looked her up once on the computer. Her picture was pretty much the same.

"That was not long after I got the money to start _Ex-AV. _I was better in a lot of ways by then. I looked at her picture and I realized that what I was pining for, had been pining for, had always been a lie, that it had never been for her what it was for me. I started to finally believe what I knew. — Isn't that weird, that we can fail to believe what we know?"

Sarah shook her head. "Not if 'belief' means _faith _or _confidence. _There's a kind of belief that sets parameters for action, and I guess it must be tightly linked to knowledge, but there's another kind that feeds or supports our actions, and we can lack that even when we know. Lacking the first can make you feel cut off from the world, but lacking the second can make you feel cut off from yourself."

Chuck stared at her. Sarah blushed. "I've thought a fair amount over the years about...self-division. Haven't done a lot about it but I've come to know a lot about it. Or, haven't done a lot until recently, anyway…"

Chuck's stare softened with a smile but he continued looking at her. "Chuck, there are some things I want to tell you that I can't, not right now. Not because I am protecting myself but because I am protecting others." _The baby, Mom. Someday. _

"It's okay, Sarah. I get that there must be people out there with axes to grind, vendettas, against you or against people you've helped."

She nodded, pleased at his understanding.

"Say," he added softly, "I'm sure you must have done a lot of good during your time in the CIA, but the story you told me last night really didn't feature any of that."

Sarah nodded again. "I did do some good. Some of the good I am sure of, because it has names, faces." _Mom talked about naming the baby 'Molly', I wonder if she did?_ "Some of it I am sure of because I kept the bad guy from doing what he wanted to do — set off a bomb in a crowded square, for example. So, yes, I did some good.

"It's not that I don't know that. But, unlike other agents, Bryce, for instance, I could never convince myself to treat 'necessary' in 'necessary evil' as mitigating the _evil._"

"And whatever happened to _B is for Bryce_?"

Sarah shrugged and frowned. "Not sure, really. I stopped our...partnership. He went off into deep cover somewhere afterward, or so I heard. I don't know where he is. I don't know _if_ he _is_. I was out of the country until just a short time before I quit, and drove out here."

Chuck sighed and nodded. He watched a man and woman pass them, pushing a stroller. He snuck a glance at Sarah as they went by "Sarah, are you afraid?"

"Of what, Chuck?"

He put his hand over his mouth, closed it around his chin, dropped it. "Of this, of us."

Sarah's heart began to race. "No. Yes. A little. Are you afraid?"

"I've never fallen this far this fast, Sarah. I'm not sure I could climb back up again, not after this, after you."

"Are you afraid I will run, Chuck?"

He hunched his shoulders, relaxed them, hunched them again. "No. Yes. A little. All this is new to you. A new place, a new apartment, a new boyfriend…9 to 5. Routine. Are you sure?"

"As sure as I can be, Chuck. I don't want the life I had, never wanted it, not even though I excelled at it. That was true with my dad, and then true with Graham. I tried to fool myself at times into believing I wanted it. I fooled other people, I suppose, although I have lately found out I never really fooled Carina. I meant what I told you last night: I want you. I want this new life, all the new things you mentioned.

"Adjusting won't be easy, it will take time. I am a snarl of twine, Chuck. Me unsnarling me is going to take time and I will need your help. So, yes, I'm afraid — but not of the things you mentioned; I'm afraid of snarling you up, of not proving to be worthy of you. Afraid you should be with someone...better."

Chuck turned on the bench so that he could face her. "There is no one better than you, Sarah. Not for me. No one. There's only you. Only you. " His conviction was palpable; it radiated warmth to her like sunlight. Sarah felt equal to it all at that moment, to everything, but most of all equal to herself. She could face herself now.

Self-belief.

Deep joy.

A deep, single love.

_I can do this._

She had drifted inward, into her thoughts; she reoriented and saw Chuck looking at her intently.

"What is it, Chuck?"

"I just love to watch you think."

Sarah blushed, swatted his shoulder. "You're the thinker, Chuck; I'm the doer."

"If you mean, you are the action hero, yes. _When you came soaring from that loft…_" Chuck drifted away for a moment before giving himself a shake, returning. "If you mean you aren't thinking all the time, no. And I _do_ things. Really, I do. But, it's...it's the depths of your eyes, Sarah, your...soul. As soon I met you, I knew if I looked into your eyes for more than a moment, it was over for me. And I looked, I couldn't help myself. I was a goner."

Sarah did not speak, but she scooted against him and gave him another intense kiss. Hungry. "From one goner to another," she told him when the kiss ended.

The couple with the stroller went back the other direction and they watched them pass again. The man and woman had obviously witnessed the kiss. They smiled as they walked by.

Sarah followed them with her eyes. "Chuck," Sarah started, her voice soft but serious, tinged with wonderment, "I want to have kids. — Don't freak out, not...like _tomorrow. _But I want you to know that. I don't know how things between us will work out, but that's something...I'm hoping for." _I hadn't let myself feel that until just now. But I've been feeling it, haven't I?_

Chuck's smile was gentle and happy. "I've always wanted a family. Wanted to have what I lost when my parents…"

Sarah took his hand. They just sat for a long time as the day stretched like a lazy, contented cat, afternoon to evening.

Together.

A phone call from Morgan to Chuck interrupted their silent, happy communion.

"Hey, Morgan. It is. Great. No, no, Morgan." Sarah watched Chuck sputter with embarrassment. "Tell Carina to stop saying that. No. All right. All right. Thanks. See you in a bit." Chuck put his phone in his pocket. He did not look at Sarah.

"What were they saying, Chuck?"

He looked at her, hesitant. "Evidently, Rick, the Large Mart guy, got right on the bed project. He's delivering it now. Morgan wanted you to know. And Carina...sent some new bedding and a bottle of champagne with the bed…"

Sarah knit her brows. "Champagne?"

"'To christen the ship for her maiden voyage.' That's a quote. From Carina. Morgan seemed to find it hilarious." Chuck reddened.

Sarah squeezed his hand. "Are you ready _to put out to sea_, Chuck?"

She had a hard time fighting back a grin, keeping her face straight, her voice flat. She did it: she could tell he was lost, could not read her.

"Put out?" Chuck asked, then heard himself. "Oh, geez, sorry. I mean. To sea? Put out to sea?"

Sarah leaned close, put her lips near his ear, and whispered. "Oh, Captain, my Captain…"

Chuck closed his eyes. She felt him tremble and then felt herself tremble. She was as moved by the thought as he was.

Waves of desire.

Hungry.

He glanced at her. "What are you saying, Sarah?" His voice squeaked a bit as he said her name.

Sarah gave him an enigmatic smile. "Saying, Chuck? I'm _doing_."

He was baffled, aroused and confused. "So, what are you _doing_, Sarah?"

She stretched her enigmatic smile to its limits. "Hanging my lanterns where you can see."

She stood up and started back toward the car. After a few steps, she glanced over her shoulder, laughing, looking at Chuck. He was still seated on the bench, his mouth agape.

"Are you coming, Chuck? It's time to meet everyone for dinner." She turned, walked on, and she heard him chase after her. He reached her side, grinning and bashful.

"I'm here."

_I am too, Chuck. I am too._

She reached for Chuck's hand as he reached for hers.

* * *

The End

* * *

A/N: Thoughts?


	15. Epilogue: Futurely

A/N: Normally, I don't supply epilogues for novellas, but since this one strayed over into novel territory...

* * *

**A Normal Madness?**

Epilogue:Futurely

* * *

Chuck and Sarah, the Porsche parked, stood at a distance from the restaurant.

Each was eyeing the sign: _Sushi and the Banshee._ After a moment of individual disbelief, they turned to each other and their distinct disbeliefs merged into one mutual disbelief.

Sarah gazed at Chuck. He gazed back. They both turned and stared again at the sign.

"Tell me, Chuck," Sarah enunciated, "tell me again about Morgan and food. _Trust without qualification?_"

Chuck's head dropped. "Yeah, that's what I said. But I hadn't expected _this_." Beneath the lettering on the sign was a cartoon picture of a woman in a luridly colorful harlequin costume, holding an empty plate, a smile on her face that seemed at once alluring and lethal.

Sarah shook her head. Chuck shrugged, chuckled nervously. "If they have a special called _Happy House, _I'd advise against ordering it."

They got to the door and Chuck opened it for Sarah. She gave him a small bow and a smirk and went in first. "Action heroes before beauty," Chuck quipped as he waved her by. "Pearls before swine," Sarah quipped back, as she punched his shoulder without even turning, her hand snapping out and back before Chuck even registered the movement.

"Hey. Ouch! And ouch! No fair, a rapid-fire, verbal-physical combo."

Sarah turned to look at him, theatrically narrowing her eyes to slits and sharpening her tone to razor. "You got no chance, boyfriend Chuck."

He looked at her in mock-terror, and then sighed happily. "It's so true, girlfriend Sarah. I'm putty in your hands."

She raised one eyebrow above her still-narrowed eyes. "I hope not."

Chuck's eyes grew and he looked around involuntarily. Sarah dropped the theater and gave him a giddy smile. Chuck shook his head in defeat.

The restaurant was not crowded. But before Sarah had seen her party, she heard Ellie: "Chuck, Sarah!" Ellie and Devon, Carina and Morgan, were at a large table in one corner. They left two seats unoccupied. Ellie and Carina were on one side, Devon and Morgan on the other. Sarah took Chuck's hand and they walked to the table. Sarah noticed that one of Ellie's feet was resting beneath the table on one of Devon's. Then Sarah recalibrated. It was one of Carina's feet on one of Morgan's. Above the table, however, neither Carina nor Morgan betrayed any sign that they were in contact beneath it.

Sarah glanced at Chuck to see if he had noticed, but he was still shaking his head, grinning to himself and enduring an aftershock blush. Sarah felt such a rush of affection for him that she pulled him to her, almost as if he were dancing the female part of the tango, and, when his body contacted hers, she gave him a brief, passionate kiss.

While she was lost in Chuck, she heard Carina snigger. "Told you the champagne would get used tonight. Hoist the mainsail! Anchors, away!"

"Shiver his timber!" Morgan added.

The two of them rollicked with laughter, joined by Devon's unrestrained booming chuckle. Ellie laughed too, but with more restraint, then scolded: "Leave them alone. They're new to this, new to _them_."

Chuck pulled back, but, to Sarah's surprise, he did not look to the table. He looked at her. Right at her, into her eyes. He waited for a second, to make sure that registered on her.

Then, in a voice only she could hear, he said. "I love you, Sarah." He held her gaze. "You don't have to say anything, nothing at all, but I am done hiding my true feelings for you."

Sarah's heart swelled. Her throat grew tight; tears formed in her eyes. "Chuck, I…" _I love you too. I know it. _She kissed Chuck again, then she turned to the group, blinking back the tears. "Hey, everyone!"

Each of the people at the table was pretending not to have been watching, pretending not to have known what had transpired, even if they had only inferred it, not heard it. Ellie and Carina were both blinking in time with Sarah. Even Devon and Morgan were moved, if not to tears, then to goofy grins.

Sarah sat down alongside Ellie and Carina, across from Chuck. Carina bumped Sarah's shoulder once she was seated. "Good day?" Sarah nodded enthusiastically.

"How about you?" Sarah asked.

She saw Carina glance at Morgan and saw him glance down, his blush about the same color as Chuck's was earlier.

"I've…maybe…had better," Carina said, slowly, still watching Morgan, "but I can't remember when…"

Sarah saw Morgan smile although he did not raise his head for a moment.

Sarah wondered what was going on beneath the table. Morgan finally did raise his head and Carina bestowed a smile on him that was little short of divine grace. Morgan beamed at Carina.

Sarah noticed that Chuck was watching Morgan and Carina, and that Ellie and Devon were too. But neither Carina nor Morgan seemed to be aware of it: they were focused on each other, on a shared moment, a shared memory.

"So," Sarah interjected, "you and Morgan went to Large Mart together? Hard to imagine you in Large Mart."

Morgan grinned at Carina. "See, I'm not the only one." He turned to Sarah. " I told her that taking her into Large Mart was like taking a Rolex to a Timex Convention."

Carina shook her head, a teasing smile beginning. "Simile's aren't Morgan's strong suit. Though I award him two points for the repeated 'x's." Carina's finishing smile was mysterious.

Sarah wondered at it but she grinned; she heard Chuck laugh.

"No, the closest Morgan's ever gotten to a good simile was the time he told me that a simile I used was like a metaphor."

It was Devon who contributed this to the conversation, and everyone at the table turned to look at him as they tried to process the comment. — Everyone except Morgan, who had ducked his head again.

"So you helped Morgan pick out my bed?" Sarah asked Carina, dropping her voice.

Carina nodded. "I tried a few on for Morgan."

Morgan's head stayed down.

"You know," Carina whispered to Sarah, "I think he liked me in every one. I have to say, it surprised me to realize the security cameras in Large Mart, except for the ones at the exit, were fakes. But it made bed shopping a...more rewarding experience."

"Carina?" Sarah asked, her eyes widening for real at Carina's expression. "You didn't?"

Carina gave Sarah an incredulous stare. "Didn't what?"

Sarah heard Chuck choke on a drink of water. Morgan glanced up at Carina and they shared another look and smile.

Morgan faced Chuck. "So, where did you two go today?"

Chuck wiped his mouth with the maroon napkin at his seat. "Griffith Park. We looked out at the scenery. Talked."

Morgan nodded, Yoda-like, his eyes hooded. "Of our lives taking stock, were we?"

Chuck gave Morgan a flat look, glanced at Carina and then shot his glance back at Morgan. "Do or do not, Morgan, there is no try. Not even in the _Bedding_ section."

Morgan looked at Carina again, his eyes pleading. She gave him a devilish smile.

Sarah had seen that smile before but never targeted on one man. It was normally scattershot, meant to affect as many men as possible at once.

Sarah still was not sure how to understand the situation.

This was uncharted territory for Carina: male friendship was unheard of, and romantic exclusivity more or less unimaginable. Even as recently as Sarah's arrival, Carina had been talking her old game, her complete lack of interest in emotional connection, intimacy. "I won't give him me." That had been what Carina said, in those or similar words. But maybe she had been talking to herself more than to Sarah, trying still to hold onto an old pattern of thinking and acting that had made sense before her last mission, but that no longer could carry conviction.

Carina moved in her chair. Sarah was almost certain Carina was again in foot-to-foot contact with Morgan. But as Carina finished her movement, she turned again to Sarah. She had an evil smile, and Sarah braced herself.

But: "Chuck?"

Everyone looked up at a small, attractive Asian-American woman standing by the table. She was wearing a jade dress and more make-up than the cartoon harlequin on the _Sushi and the Banshee _sign.

"Anna?…" Chuck said. "Anna Wu? How are you?"

The woman frowned, a red line below black eyeliner. "I haven't heard from you. I assume you still need my professional help…"

"Um...ah…" Chuck started.

The name finally clicked for Sarah: Chuck's previous dating coach — Anna Wu.

"I have worked on a whole series of remedial lessons, Chuck. I've reviewed your case. I have some exciting new suggestions."

Sarah looked at Anna. "So do I."

She moved her eyes from Anna to Chuck. Anna speared her with a look. "And who would you be?"

"My name is Sarah, and I am Chuck's dating coach. He's made remarkable progress in a short time. He had a date this very day!"

The table had gone quiet, waiting to discover out how this scene would end. — Except for Chuck: he looked like a man before a firing squad whose final cigarette had burnt out.

Anna made a skeptical sound. "That's impossible. What woman would accept a Chuck Bartowski invitation?"

"It just so happens that this woman called him and asked him out."

Anna laughed to scorn. "It must have been pretended, a woman who went out with him on a dare."

"No," Sarah said, "definitely not a dare. I would call it...a love match." She looked from Anna to Chuck, making sure he heard her words, that he heard her say them in front of everyone. "Yes," Sarah intoned musically, forgetting Anna altogether, "a love match."

"The poor woman. She must have no clue about love."

Sarah smiled but felt her heart lurch a little. "I don't think she knows much about it, but she doesn't have to know much about it to know that she feels it, and she can explore it as she goes. She plans to explore it with Chuck, to learn from him. They'll learn together."

"Where is this _fabled_ woman?" Anna said, her voice dripping derision, looking around the restaurant. "Is she outside — _parking her unicorn_?"

A low growl, feral and involuntary, escaped Sarah.

Carina stood up and took Anna Wu by the arm. "Probably best for you not to meet her," Carina said, pulling Anna away from the table.

Sarah looked down to find that one chopstick from her place-setting was clutched in her hand like a dagger.

She slipped it back onto her place-setting. She looked up at Chuck.

He was smiling at her, a lighthouse. Only then did she recapture her words to Anna; she dropped her eyes. After a moment of self-collection, she glanced up at Chuck, glanced around the table. She could feel the happiness of everyone there.

Carina came back, shaking her head, and muttering about now knowing who the banshee was.

Sarah let the marvelous moment hold her, abide: these people — even Devon, who she had not yet gotten to know — made happy by her happiness. They wanted her to be happy and they were happy that she was. She had been a small child the last time she had known a moment like that.

A family moment.

_Family_.

And she knew that Chuck had entrusted her with his happiness, just as she had entrusted him with hers.

Just then, the waiter arrived to take orders, apologizing for being slow to get to them.

While everyone else listened to the waiter describe the specials, Sarah caught Chuck's attention. "I love you too," she mouthed. He nodded softly, and gave her a smile she had never seen before, but that she recognized as hers, as reserved for her, not for public display.

His smile was her secret.

They both then began to listen to the waiter. But Sarah's mind wandered, to her new apartment, to her brand-new bed.

She would make him smile that smile again later. As many times as possible.

The sushi — Sarah never figured out the banshee — turned out to be terrific. Morgan had been right. Everyone complimented him and Carina glowed at him.

There was lots of talk, lots of banter, lots of enjoyment. Sarah's feeling of belonging strengthened as the evening went on.

Her new friends, Ellie and Devon and Morgan.

Her new old friend, Carina, somehow still the same and yet somehow different.

Her new and first love, Chuck.

_Family_.

ooOoo

Fall became winter became spring.

The best seasons of Sarah's life.

She loved the job at _Ex-AV, _and she loved her boss. She really _loved_ her boss. And as often as she possibly could.

Her boss. It was clear from her first day that he was her boss on paper only. From the time she arrived, he included her in everything, gave over the reins of the business to her, consulted with and listened to her. He talked of _Ex-AV _with the first-person plural pronoun, 'we'. She felt like a part of something good and something promising from the first day.

She found their new location, a lovely small building with sunny, windowed offices and with a large brightly-lit basement that Chuck used for the lab.

Sarah and Chuck met often in the stairwell for 'conferences'.

Sarah convinced Chuck that the best protection for his work was publicity, not secrecy. So, they featured the sale of the program to the Japanese company in the newspaper and in the LA business magazine that had profiled Chuck when he opened _Ex-AV. _In the interview, he mentioned no next-gen version of the program, talking only about the sold one and about some games he was developing.

Sarah had nearly fallen out of her chair when she saw the check, the fortune, the Japanese company paid for the program. _Ex-AV _and Chuck were awash in cash. But nothing changed with Chuck, other than the renting of the new office.

Almost nothing. He bought a car. A Prius.

But he had the dealership add an after-market spoiler to the rear, just so Sarah would not be embarrassed to be seen driving it. She had shaken her head at her boyfriend, reminding him that an added spoiler simply made it a spoiled Prius, but he was undeterred.

He remained smilingly unrepentant about it, and she usually let him drive it, enjoying the chance to watch the man she loved drive an unsporty car: Chuck could make a Prius sexy, spoiled or not.

A month before her sublease was due to run out, Chuck asked her to move in.

ooOoo

It became clear to everyone over time that Carina and Morgan were more than friends, but their friendship was not marginalized: it was at the center of what they were as a couple. Morgan was promoted to manager of the Buy More. Carina stayed at the DEA, working out of an office in LA. She refused to do more deep cover work, and, rather than lose her, her boss offered her a position coordinating and supporting deep-cover agents, those working near the border and in Mexico.

Her claustrophobia got better. Morgan kept making her laugh.

ooOoo

On the day Sarah was due to move into Chuck's apartment, she got a phone call. It was from Irene.

"Hey, Irene. Sarah here."

"Hey, Long time, no talk — but that's good. I confess I worried you might end up back here. I know agents who tried to leave but just came back, they couldn't be...normalized. But, you, Sarah, you're okay?"

"Yes, Irene. I'm...I'm in love with a wonderful man, help him run his company. I'm moving in with him today." Sarah still could not believe all that was true — but it was.

"So, the competition, Jackie, she lost like I knew she would."

Sarah smiled self-consciously. "Yes, yes, she did. I found...the life I was looking for."

"Good. The invitation to visit still open?"

"Of course."

"This last DC winter was long; I'm feeling pasty."

"Then head out here, Irene, I'd like you to meet Chuck."

"'Chuck'? Huh, Well, he is a lucky man. I'll get back to you about a visit. I'm calling for a reason, not just to check in. A few weeks ago, a rogue CIA agent, only recently declared rogue, was shot and killed. His name was Ryker. — Wasn't he involved in that Budapest mission of yours?" The news, and way Irene asked the question, made Sarah's pulse race. _How much does Irene know_?

"Yes."

Irene cleared her throat. "Yes, well, Ryker was killed by an NSA agent named John Casey. You might have heard of him?"

"Yes, hard-edged. A killer."

"That's him. I don't know the details, why he was chasing Ryker or anything, but I...noted at the time of your leaving what your last mission had been and I...put some things together. Don't worry," Irene added, "I've talked to no one about...what I put together. And there are crucial bits I do not know and so could tell no one. But I thought knowing that Ryker was dead might...be of interest."

"It is." _I can see Mom. Molly. They can meet Chuck. _"Thank you, Irene."

"How about Easter? For a visit? Maybe I could meet this Chuck?"

"Yes, come, please."

"Okay, I will get back to you."

Sarah sat down, phone in hand, stunned. And then her racing pulse became excited, not frightened. She was about to call her mom when there was a knock at the door. Sarah walked to it and opened it. Ellie was standing outside. She had a funny look on her face.

"Sarah, can you come out here for a minute?"

Sarah was not sure what was happening. She stepped outside and saw Chuck. He was standing by the fountain, wearing his navy suit, a tie. He was pacing.

"Chuck?" Sarah walked toward him. He looked pale. She started to get worried.

As she got to him, he bent down on one knee and took out a small blue velvet box. It took Sarah a minute to understand. She looked over her shoulder, but Ellie had vanished.

"Chuck?"

"Sarah, let me get this out. I'm so happy you are in my life. I'm so happy you are moving in with me. And I want you to move in wearing this, to move in wearing a promise to be my wife, my promise to be your husband. I want a future with you. Sarah Walker, will you marry me?"

Sarah stood speechless. She and Chuck had talked about a future, marriage, talked about kids, but it had all been heart-warming _someday _talk. No definite dates.

But this was _today_. A definite date.

The man she loved was asking her to marry him. And all because he had been her successful, unofficial dating coach while she was his unsuccessful, official dating coach.

_Thank God, I was unsuccessful. _

Chuck started to look panicky.

"Yes!" Sarah whispered, tears falling. "Yes."

She extended her hand and he slipped on the ring. Sarah heard her door open and knew Ellie had come back to the courtyard. Ellie's door opened, and Devon and Carina and Morgan came out. Sarah got hugs from everyone. After the hugs were over, amid the happy hubbub next to the fountain, Sarah leaned against the man she would marry.

She held her hand out in front of her so she could admire the ring. She loved and she was loved. Her life now had the bow-shape of a welcomed promise, not the snarl-shape of a disavowed regret. She was not completely free, unsnarled, but she was freer than she ever imagined being, and there was more freedom to come.

What defined her now was in front of her, not behind her.

Sarah let Chuck pull her into a kiss and into that future.

* * *

Love to hear any final thoughts. Call it a trade: an epilogue from me for a final thought from you?

I've left doors open back into this story. If I write any more fanfiction, I might return to it.

We need more Siouxsie and the Banshees reference in fanfics, I think.

Thanks to Beckster1213 for pre-reading, and to WvonB and LetsGoRed.

— Zettel


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